Mr. President, you’re not worthy of the office you hold…

Mr. President, you’re not worthy of the office you hold…

 LANKA Standard Vishnuguptha | Published on November 27, 2011

The occasion was the annual Budget Speech in Parliament. Unlike in the Westminster- system days, and

Chaos in the House

in terms of age-old traditions of parliamentary practices, the Finance Minister, in this instance His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka (as he could not trust to give this vital portfolio away to any other member of his sixty one-strong Cabinet) was in the process of presenting his Budget in an unusually halting manner, exposing his lack of familiarity with the gravity of the occasion and the seriousness of the contents of his presentation. In the well of the House, the Opposition MPs, mostly UNPers, held placards that read “Shame” etc. Some government MPs, including some Cabinet Members like Mervyn Silva started advancing towards the placard-holding UNP MPs and manhandling them in the assembly.

The misfortune was not the attack by the likes of Mervyn Silva, Rohitha Abeygoonawardene, Dilum Amunugama and Lohan Ratwatte etc from whom one simply cannot expect any decent conduct, The real tragedy was that both the Speaker, the elder brother of the President who was presiding over the

President Rajapakse delivering his budget speech

proceedings and the President, the younger brother who’s the Chief Executive of the nation, who was speaking chose not to avert a serious breach of Parliamentary proceedings. The right action would have been for the Speaker of the House, Honourable Chamal Rajapaksa to name those UNP MPs and instruct Sergeant-at-Arms to remove those MPs from the well of the House. It did not happen. The graver misconduct was in fact committed by the Speaker and the President by choosing to ignore the attacks by the government MPs. They were either condoning what was taking place or they were rendered into inaction by not knowing what course of action was open to them. Both choices are not acceptable to a decent society.

UNP Members of Parliament hold up placards during the President's Budget speechFull Story>>>