UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe redemonstrated his parliamentary majority and officially positioned himself as the ideal candidate for the Prime Minister’s post.
The confidence motion presented in support of UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe passed with 117 MPs voting in favour.
The UNP and the TNA voted in favour of the motion presented by UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa. JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said his party would not support the motion, but pledged support to any action taken to reverse the October 26 coup.
Presenting the motion earlier today, Premadasa said Wickremesinghe was the MP who commanded the support of the majority of Parliamentarians.
While stressing the need for re-appointment of Wickremesinghe, Premadasa said the current political crisis should be resolved through the appointment of MP commanding the majority support in the House as the Prime Minister.
UNP MP Mangala Samaraweera seconded the motion. He stressed the importance of coming forward to protect the parliamentary democracy of Sri Lanka at a time when it has come under immense pressure due to the actions of the Executive President.
Speaking in Parliament after the motion was passed, Wickremesinghe thanked everyone who supported the motion.
The UNP Leader said it was the duty of all political parties to respect the constitutional provisions. He said all right-thinking parties should come together to find a solution to the current crisis through democratic means.
He also expressed his commitment to a political solution to the national question without dividing the country.
“We have not forgotten our promise for a new constitution and the abolition of Executive Presidency. We will continue to work towards achieving them,” Wickremesinghe said adding that strengthening Provincial Councils will be a key pillar of his political solution to the national question.
Ayathuray Rajasingam / December 12, 2018
Ranil Wickremasinghe, Congratulations. People are awaiting the day for you to swear as Prime Minister of this country. I hope all the obstacles that have been places been removed. Even now if Maithiripala Sirisena refuses to appoint you as Prime Minister, then it is presumed that he is ignoring the Parliament, i.e. the sovereignty of the people. In that case Maithiripala Sirisena should either resign himself or he should be sent home unceremoniously. Sri Lanka is moving towards a glorious period.
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Richard / December 13, 2018
Ranil, never mind stamping your authority in parliament,,, but this time we want you to clear your name from the bond scam, bring back all the loot robbed from the state coffers by Mahinda and his band of thieves , punish all those murders responsible for the killings of Thajudeen, Eknaliagoda, etc and ensure the parliament is clean with no one with a criminal record is ever permitted to set foot inside it.
We expect you to also get all MPs who sold their ‘TAX FREE’ vehicle permit and pocketed the money to return the money to the state coffers or else use their private vehicle for official duties, MPs to be limited to one (01) vehicle and one (01) security official, No family member to be allowed as secretaries, advisers, etc, NEW CONSTITUTION to include 1) MPs barred from crossing, to prevent corruption of auctioning them like the Indian IPL. 2) Remove the executive of the President to be a ceremonial head of state only with no ‘Executive’ powers.
If this does not happen the writing is on the wall for you too at the next elections.
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hancho pancha / December 12, 2018
Trouble with RW is not his credentials per se but his obnoxious lackluster character which certainly is of no help to win, him friends. MS chose MR who is at the opposite corner of the Square. It is hard to be convinced that he is really lesser one out of the two devils.
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Dental Wijeweera / December 12, 2018
Shouldn’t the heading read “Ranil stamps authority over empty parliament”.
What a bloody joke to get the TNA (Supposedly the opposition) to vote for him while there is nobody objecting?
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This guy really is a napunwhatever.
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Amarasiri / December 12, 2018
Dear Sane MPs of the Parliament
Do whatever it takes to protect the supremacy and independence of the parliament. Right now, there is a wild and insane executive president, the JR ghost, the insane madman, the late Dr N M Perera succinctly predicted in 1978.
The country is in peril because of this madmanm.
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Eagle Eye / December 12, 2018
Sajith who chickened out when he was requested to be the PM to save ‘Yahapalana’ Government should be condemned as a person who does not have leadership qualities and as a person who does not care for the people in this country. He is spitting on the face of people in this country by expressing his confidence on a guy who is responsible for the biggest bank robbery, violated the ‘Yahapalana’ principals, all out to sell national assets to foreigners, willing to break the country into pieces to satisfy the pay masters of ‘Regime Change’ and ‘Koti’ Diaspora. Sajith, you are an utter disgrace to your father who was a patriotic leader.
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Nimal / December 12, 2018
This picture in smart suite get get a house point from me but how is he going to get the money that was robbed from the bond scam?
Please let other politicians that include rouges and honest wear his kind of suite that gives a better image oy our up and coming culture. China had done that, sadly it was Weerawansa who met the Chinese leaders in China wearing a monkey dress while his Chinese counterpart wore the suit like Ranil.So don’t ridicule our country. Sorry for going out of the above subject of this tread but every step in the right direction is relevant to this day and age.Perhaps the President is jealous of RW wearing a suite but I could send the President a suit from the Charity shop but will not match if still wears a pirith nula.
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Gihan Weerasinghe / December 12, 2018
Superb speech in parliament today Wednesday. We have a real leader in our midest
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PARAGON / December 12, 2018
THIS GUY MY3 MAY HAVE SOME MORE TIME BUYING TRICKS UNDER HIS SLEEVES .EVEN HE DECIDE FOR A SETTLEMENT WITH UNF THOSE WHO HAVE COURT CASES SUCH AS ROHITHA,WIMAL,GAMANPULLE,DILAN AND SB MY TRY TO GIVE HIM SOME MORE D-ROPES.HOPE THE SUPREME COURT WILL TEACH THEM A GOOD LESION.
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Maharage, Nimal / December 12, 2018
Bravo Ranil,
Your first job is to free our country from Chinese .
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Sena / December 12, 2018
Even if there are hundreds of motions , this lunatic and dumb Shitsena wouldn’t move. Only means is to get on streets, show your power, and chase away this dictator. He is ruling the country by issuing illegal decrees, without a legally appointed government which is a grave danger to democracy, rule of law and the people. He thinks that the constitution is nothing, and he is above the constitution, and for a good measure, the whole country despise him for all his foul deeds.
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Chandra / December 12, 2018
Just because MR and Mr Sirisena have been so stupid as to paint themselves into a constitutional corner should not excuse the very many inexcusable things that the UNP cabal of Wickremesinghe, Malik Samarawickreme and their legal lackeys, Jayampathy Wickremeratne and others holding the labels of concerned lawyers did during the last 3 years.
It is this half-assed meddling with Article 33 (2 (c) that has landed us in this mess.
I would not trust any of them as far as my hand can throw. Time we get rid of all and get in fresh blood. Enough of these old men hanging on for power.
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Eagle Eye / December 12, 2018
Sajith says there is no agreement with TNA to get their votes. You tell this to whom we call in Sinhala ‘konde bendapu Cheennu’. Do not try to fool us. We know the TNA devils very well. They will not give their vote for nothing. At the next election, all those politicians who try to protect ‘Maha Benku Hora’ will be branded as traitors. There is one good thing. Even the ordinary folks in rural areas who do not know anything about Bonds call ‘Maha Benku Hora’ to Ranil. They think Ranil entered the Central Bank at night and removed all the money stacked there.
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Muhandiram / December 12, 2018
Is it “Ranil Stamping his authority over Parliament” or the Party, the UNP, demonstrating that it is Really United on the current Confrontation between My3 and RW? Believe, it is more the latter than the former.
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Fathima / December 12, 2018
UNP might have seen many election defeats with Ranil as their leader, but today under the same leadership, UNP stands a party that has majority of educated, decent and disciplined politicians who have been mentored to stay firm, focused and united on their stance, and not willing to put down their leader at any desperate circumstances. There was a time Kalu Sunils, Soththi Upalis, Choppays and the same were terrorizing streets with help of UNP politicians. RW is changing SL’s political culture. Except for election defeats, he has done a good cleanup at party level.
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Sinhala_Man / December 12, 2018
One wishes the Supreme Court would give its judgement soon, but clearly we must wait patiently. We must not put any undue pressure on the seven judge bench to hurry up with it.
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Meanwhile, it is understandable that the UNP, the JVP, and the TNA should act as they are. No unseemly behaviour, no threats etc. None of them is to blame for the present impasse. Two individuals, more than all others are to blame. Maithripala Sirisena and Mahendra Percy Rajapaksa. It is they who can most easily end this state of affairs which is harming the country so much.
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Instead they will start blaming Ranil Wickremasinghe and the rest of the UNP for this crisis. This is absurd.
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However, let us hope that Ranil uses his judgement the way I (a little older than Ranil) want him to. I feel that what I want is nothing clever, original or unique. I’d like him to hand over the leadership of the UNP and the Prime Ministership to somebody younger. Although I feel that a majority of Sri Lankans want this there is no way in which this can be proved.
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I don’t want an early unconstitutional election. Elections should be called only after this Parliament has been in place for 54 months (the last elections were in August 2015.) Want it sooner? Get it passed by a two thirds majority of the 225 in Parliament. I was never good at Maths; let Maithripala make that calculation as my paid servant..
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Sinhala_Man / December 13, 2018
This situation is yet unresolved. We don’t really know who “governs” us; we’ve been told that we’re the people who matter. The last “Prime Minister” and his cabinet have been asked to explain by the Appeal Court by what authority they hold office.
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Yet I see this “news” now:
https://www.newsfirst.lk/2018/12/12/sri-lankas-first-ever-electric-railway-system-to-be-constructed/
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Let somebody run the trains on time; yet somebody is in a hurry to construct (a much needed) improvement to our transportation system. Is somebody trying to pocket a Commission even given the mess we are in?
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Apart from that report, I saw a different one saying that there is going to be a rail strike commencing on Boxing Day.
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Are all these things happening in the same country?
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douglas / December 12, 2018
There is one more “BATTLE” to be won. A case has been filed in courts challenging his eligibility to be in Parliament as an MP. We already have in records that a similar case was filed against Mr. Rajitha Senaratne who lost his seat in the Parliament. Let us wait and see how Ranil W faces the case against him. It is a good sign than the people are now getting smarter in handling public affairs maintaining sanity in protests of all forms.
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Amarasiri / December 12, 2018
Sirisena,
Ranil positions ” Officially Positions Himself As Suitable MP For PM Post”
What about the Fake PM, and MP for Kurunegala? Did you give Mahinda Rajapaksa a D Rope to destroy him, a second time? Ask the Fake PM to resign from the Fake PM position, and you can make an announcement that Mahinda Rajapaksa has resigned from the Fake PM position
In the meantime, while this drama is unfolding, the country is in peril Do you think that the people voted you for this Nadagama? Or, did Mahinda Rajapaksa, convince you n that?
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Plato. / December 12, 2018
MaRa and his gang will now say that Ranil.W. has sold the country to the Tamils.This is the usual refrain from the Banda-Chelva Pact to the Dudley-Chelva Pact.When one party attempts to resolve the National Question the other party derails same.Anyway, if Ranil.W.. delivers on this promise,amidst opposition from extremists, he would go down in History as a Statesman!
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JD / December 12, 2018
But, Athul Keshp had asked Maithripala Sirisens, that is OK to get rid of Ranil. But, talk to Kau Jayasooriya and work with him (God Natha)
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roy / December 12, 2018
Its high time for patholaya to disappear , He deserves a statue with some plaster of paris on him and erected on a paddy field in Polonnaruwa. His balls should be handed over to the Medamulana mafia boss, the mustachio man.
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roy / December 12, 2018
Its high time for Patholaya to disappear , The record breaking president Sira deserves a statue with plaster of paris on him and erected on a paddy field in Polonnaruwa. His balls should be handed over to the Medamulana mafia boss , the mustachio man.
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Ajay / December 12, 2018
Sira, appoint Ranil as PM at least now if you want to avoid total anarchy. History will then have at least one positive footnote in the chapter about the worst ruler in post-independence Sri Lanka.
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Amarasiri / December 13, 2018
Quisling Sirisena,
“Sira, appoint Ranil as PM at least now if you want to avoid total anarchy”
It’s time to eat crow, and save the country from peril
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MNIN Perera (OTC) / December 12, 2018
Unfortunately, the euphoria may be short lived.
Will the 19A bite back at the last moment?
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All depends on whether Maithree’s power to dissolve Parliament which he unquestionably had pre 19A survived the 19A.
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In the judgement delivered by the SC on the Constitutionality of 19A, the SC ruled that a SL President has no power to relinquish the powers conferred on him by the Sovereign people (https://www.colombotelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SC-SD-4-to-19-of-2015.pdf).
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According to that ruling the only way to reduce these powers is to pass a resolution with a 2/3 majority in Parliament AND obtaining the approval of the people at a referendum.
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No referendum was held subsequent to the 19A !
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Mallaiyuran / December 13, 2018
OTC,
There is nowhere said in that PDF that to reduce the EP’s authority a referendum is absolutely necessary.
It is argued that if the form of the government is changed, then it needs the referendum. PM may not be authorized to take over the EP by switching the duties. So, after JR, PM is having problem of ruling the cabinet. But in the case of Old King, New King voluntarily allowed the way he wanted to appoint the ministers and set the cabinet. But still they never had the gut to break barrier of 19A, the maximum of 30 Ministers. (That could be one of their problems of they were not being able to establish the “Command” in the parliament)
The attitude of the Court seems to be that it is the people reps are passing the laws with violation. There is always a fair chance for the people’s reps for talking inside the parliament for the people and have them corrected. So unless the Court sees it is absolute necessary, it wouldn’t step in and tell the parliament how to pass the Acts and Amendments.
Passage of 14A was contested by Nagananda and Court told him not to show his head black there again. Shiranee Bandaranayke could not stop 18A interfering with13A even by sacrificing her CJ position. So AG did not make that mistake with 19A on the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th of November.
AG argued only about challenging the EP’s in SC based on Articles, 17, 62 and 126. He said it can be done only in Parliament.
Unlike you, AG did know that he cannot take two incompatible defenses.
Further, it was not a case verdict. It was the reply for the application for consultation. Applicants don’t get bound by consultations.
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Bandakka / December 12, 2018
‘UPFA MP Keheliya Rambukwella said that they don’t accept the motion of confidence presented and passed in support of United National Party (UNP) Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe in Parliament today’.
Then….
‘UPFA MP Dullas Alahapperuma said it was only the people who could bring to an end this crisis by way of a General Election’.
Just imagine if Mahinda had clung on without majority in the parliament. These two and Mahinda’s all other sundries would have said Sri Lanka is the best democratic country in the world.
These fellows are cronies, suffering from irredeemable verbal diarrhoea.
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Real Revolutionist / December 12, 2018
There’s no coup took place on 26th Oct. 2018
The actual coup took place in 2015 to make MS the common candidate, that led to install RW as the PM.
Without that coup RW would not have been the PM of SL. ( as well as MS the president of SL)
It was the result of that coup, that made 105 UNP MPs in the house later that year, so that’s unreal too.
So RW’s majority parliamentary support is probably good to be called as fake unless proven through a fresh mandate,
Not that we have to go back to before Oct. 26th; we have to go back to before Jan. 2015
Why did UNP support a common candidate if RW or any other UNPer had capacity to win the election?
The perfect truth in Sri Lanka today is that people have fake president, fake pm & fake parliament.
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Gamini / December 12, 2018
While it is clear, the UNF is mostly acting pragmatically and democratically according to the Constitution and the ‘rule book’, in my opinion, MS is ruling not for ALL but only for his Supporters. He has his own agenda which he is attempting to achieve, by hook or by crook, while at the same time he is attempting to help out his own Colleagues in Parliament.. Thus, he does not appear to be acting objectively, rationally, constitutionally, legally and democratically, in the best interest of the Country as a whole. While he is displaying signs of depravity and derangement he may also not be mentally of sound mind to hold that Office. It is only a ‘Specialist’ in the field who can make a pronouncement as to his current mental condition and capacity to discharge his duties effectively and honourably. In the meantime the People and their lives and the Country are at peril while the ‘JOkers’ are acting like ‘Clowns’ providing entertainment to the gullible few.
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Lankan No 03 / December 12, 2018
MS does not like him…
M&S IS A trouble maker now .
He must be impeached now ..
How waste time .
How many times we keep telling him .
Do.or die .
Bring stability into the country
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JD / December 12, 2018
It is Amazing the bond scammers effort t show off. NERO did the same. there are many to back him. Pinochet, Ferdinand Marcos and there are many such examples all backed by Neo-Liberal Coups
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Above the Rest / December 13, 2018
The UNP has at last corrected a mistake they made in 2015. This confidence motion should have been presented in parliament at the time Ranil was sworn in a PM by President Sirisena. All the S B Dissanayakes, Nimal Siripala de Silvas, Mahinda Samarasinghes, Sarath Amunugamas etc etc would have voted for it, and Ranil would have got more than a 2/3 majority!
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Ad / December 13, 2018
The legislature looks empty without rouges… Good sign.
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