Sirisena-MR Govt. still stands, says Cabinet Spokesman

• Says they don’t accept what happened in P’ment 
• Samarasinghe claims President will act constitutionally once he receives letter from Speaker 
• Says their MPs will attend Parliament today 
• Dayasiri admits Rajapaksa camp doesn’t have 113, but insists neither does RW 

By Chathuri Dissanayake 

Refusing to accept the results of the no confidence motion moved in Parliament yesterday, the two Cabinet Spokesmen appointed by President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday insisted their Government was still functional and legal. 

Both Co-Spokesmen appointed by Sirisena following the shock removal of sitting Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mahinda Samarasinghe and Dayasiri Jayasekara, who was appointed the State Minister of Media and Information at the 11th hour before President dissolved Parliament last Friday, defended the legitimacy of their Government, calling the vote not acceptable as it deviated from standard Parliamentary procedure.

“The Speaker has issued a statement on what happened today, he notes that there was a vote taken but he didn’t take a count. He should have done electronic voting, which he didn’t do. He just took count on appearance. We don’t accept it,” Samarasinghe insisted. 

Terming Speaker Karu Jayasuriya’s actions “biased,” he said that the proper motions set out in the standing orders of Parliament should have been followed if there was to be a no confidence motion. 

However, he was not clear why their faction did not vote against the motion when Parliamentarian M. A. Sumanthiran moved a motion to suspend the Standing Orders prior to taking up the no confidence motion. 

“The President has worked constitutionally, and the Parliament cannot challenge it. The Standing Orders are there to govern how to manage a no confidence motion. The no confidence should be in the order book for five days’ notice, then it should be taken for discussion at the party leaders’ meeting and then entered into the Order papers. This did not happen today,” Samarasinghe claimed. 

“We didn’t even see the no confidence motion, we just saw Vijitha Herath rushing to hand a letter being given to the Secretary General of Parliament, so we don’t even know it is legitimate. This is not how it should be done.”

Critical of the procedure followed in Parliament yesterday, Jayasekara claimed that two wrongs didn’t make a right, noting that the move by the United National Party and other political allies to rush through a vote on no confidence was “deviating from standard procedure to fix a wrong that is claimed to have been done” and was also illegal.

Samarasinghe however said that the President would make a “constitutional and legal” decision on the current situation once he received legal counsel upon receiving the letter from the Speaker.  “I have the Speaker’s media statement, it says the vote was not by division, and he claims the motion has been passed. Further he refers to another letter with 122 signatures which he says he will give to the President. We will see what the next course of action by the President is,” he said. Both politicians however failed to present a clear picture on what would happen next, but said they would attend Parliament today at 10 a.m. When questioned by reporters, Jayasekara admitted that they did not have 113 seats. “We don’t have 113 seats but Ranil doesn’t have a majority either,” he said, insisting that the future course of action would be decided by Sirisena soon.