Sri lanka’s newly-elected Parliament will decide the strength of the new Cabinet in the unity Government on September 3, Prime Minister Rnail Wickremesinghe said on Sunday.“On September 3, Parliament will decide on the extended number of Cabinet and State Ministers. This is necessitated due to the 19th amendment when we limited the Cabinet to 30 members,” Wickremesinghe said.
Nearly two weeks after the August 17 polls in which UNP failed to secure the absolute majority of 113 in the 225-member Parliament, the full Cabinet is yet to be formed.Only three Cabinet members, including Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, were appointed last week to host a visit by a group of top US State Department officials.
Wickremesinghe’s UNP and President Maithripala Sirisena’s Sri lanka Freedom Party decided to form a national unity Government, but there has been serious disagreements over the sharing of key portfolios.Sirisena has permitted free will of his 95-member group to either join the national Government or to stay as the Opposition group.
Some members of the SlFP who are followers of the former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa have announced that they would not join the national Government but would work as the main Opposition.This has made the TNA to stake a claim for the Opposition leader’s post as they with 16 members, it is the largest single Opposition group. However, political parties remain divided on the TNA claim.
“A group of our own SlFP members are to stay in Opposition despite the national Government arrangement. If they are the largest group then they can ask for the post,” SB Dissanayake, the SlFP Treasurer said. “If the TNA ends up as the largest group then it is only fair they be given the position,” Nihal Galappathy, newly-elected MP from the Marxist, JVP said.
“This attempt by the President to appoint someone who will become an acolyte of the Government must be opposed,” Vasudeva Nanayakkara of the left
front said.
