{"id":112019,"date":"2021-02-24T16:23:21","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T23:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112019"},"modified":"2021-02-24T16:23:21","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T23:23:21","slug":"does-sri-lanka-need-an-opposition-in-the-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/02\/24\/does-sri-lanka-need-an-opposition-in-the-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"DOES SRI LANKA NEED AN OPPOSITION IN THE PARLIAMENT?"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Does\nSri Lanka need an opposition in the parliament when the affairs of the state are\nactivated and discharged? It may be a critical question because when evaluating\nthe role was played and is played by the opposition, the general impression of\npeople seems that the government, as well as the opposition, should equally\nresponsible for the state affairs. When investigating the political role played\nin the past people have many questions to be asked without the difference in\npolitical parties that they have been in opposition since independence.\nPolitics is a dynamic matter that quickly attracts the attention of the public and\na small pace of total population that may be less than 5% concern with\npolitics. Many people think politics is wasting time rather than supporting the\nconstructive development of the country. If anyone asks, do opposition politics\nplay a good role for the country, it may be a vague question for anyone to\nanswer as many people have arduousness evaluating the role played or is being\nplayed by the opposition.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka\u2019s politics and administration had been based on totalitarian style since\nthe beginning of Sinhala state and the way of political administration had been\nmanaged until the concept of democracy was introduced by the Donormore reform\nprocess in 1932. The so-called democracy could be considered as a system that\nis biased towards political administrators. Under British rule not only in Sri\nLanka but also in many colonial states applied dictatorial judgments and, in\nthe UK, too applied dictatorial policies and the best example was criminally\npunished people deported to Australia to colonize the country without proper\nconsent of the domestic citizen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No\nclear evidence available about whether the Donormore commission created,  political institution, the State Council did\nallow an opposition in the format of current opposition or as in the way of the\nParliamentary system for representation in the council. However, outside the State\nCouncil, opposition political movements either openly or disguisedly played the\nopposing role and they had educated the public on the concerned issues. The\nofficial opposition came to operate after the Soulbury reforms in 1947, and\nsince then the role played by the opposition was not been satisfied by the\npublic. In some instances, the role of the opposition reflected it was a useless\ninstitution in the parliamentary system.  The current role of the opposition is showing\nthat the opposition is playing a role in return for the payments received by them\nin the parliamentary administration, otherwise, there will be a growing\nopposition of the public toward them. The best example is the role played by Mr.\nSajith Premadasa, who has no idea what should he play as the leader of the\nopposition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe 1956 and i977 elections, fewer members were elected to the opposition, and\nthe role of the opposition was subject to cheapen, which was the opinion of\nacademics, and in 1977, Mr. Jayewardene had an idea to create more strong\nopposition by transferring several government members to the opposition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir\nIvor Jennings stated in his book Cabinet Government, the leader of the\nopposition would be the alternative prime minister of Queen, and the Herald Laski\nalso expressed an opinion on the role of opposition. When critically examine\nthe role played by the opposition, the duty of certain members was appreciated\nby people. Many accepted that Dr.N.M Perera, Dr.S. A Wickramasinghe, Dr. Colvin\nR.de Silva, Mr. Prins Gunesekera, Mr. J.R. Jayewardene, Mr. R. Premadasa, and\nmany Tamil opposition members played an excellent role contributing to the\nconcept of parliamentary democracy. However, the role of the current opposition\nseems to be weak, and they do less research on the government policies and have\nless association with people to scrutinize the role played by them. News media\nthat broadly expanded in the country either praise or negatively criticize the\nrole of the opposition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nis the role of the opposition? This has been a popular question among students\nof political science.  If we go beyond\nthe views of Sir Ivor Jennings, we can develop new ideas and obtain good\nreturns for the parliament expenses for the opposition in Sri Lanka. What I\nhave seen as the major weakness of the opposition is that neither leader of the\nopposition nor members of the opposition has not expressed an opinion on the\ncurrent critical issues such as the human rights report of the UN and the\nreport of the Easter Commission, why they are so reluctant to express firm\nviews on these concern matters?  This\nseems that the opposition is playing a double game rather than attempting to\nmake justice for the country.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nother democratic states, opposition comes forward to express constructive\nviews, and why the opposition in Sri Lanka is reluctant to express constructive\nviews on government policies? The situation shows that the opposition is playing\nthe role of international agencies than confirming the wish of the public. If\nit investigates the role played by the opposition showed that they are doing\nnothing. Soon after independence, the opposition played a constructive role and\nit was attracted by people. The election results in 1977 reflected the\nconfirmation of the role of Mr.J.R. Jayawardane as the opposition leader from\n1970 to 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncurrent situation raises a common question to all whether the opposition should\nplay a role like the Western democracies or develop the opposition as in the way\nof Japan that plays a very constructive role for the interest of the country.\nWhen the opposition plays a crafty role to show they are doing a good job, and\nthe best system appropriates Sri Lanka is combining the opposition with the\ngovernment, and when genuinely need opposing to the government policy actions,\nthey should be allowed to oppose.  The\nopposition and the government need to work as one person for the interest of\nthe country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nthe war with LTTE, the opposition UNP could have to support the war effort of\nthe government and share the victory with the government.  If it happened UNP would have not defeated in\na regrettable way in 2020 and Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe could have stayed as a\nhero in the country. This is the way opposition is working in Western\ndemocratic countries.  Why Mr. Sajith\nPremadasa and his colleagues don\u2019t like to associate with the government and\nplay a constructive role? There is no specific reason, but the opposition plays\na role in support of the Western aided NGOs, which are playing a role against\nChina and Russia. Sometimes, they may work in support of India.  The commission report regarding the Easter\nSunday attack in 2019 has hinted out that who did bomb blasts and rumors are\nspread to coverup the matter.  Why the\nopposition cannot question these matters in the parliament? Do they work like\nsupporters of a foreign intelligence agency?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Does Sri Lanka need an opposition in the parliament when the affairs of the state are activated and discharged? It may be a critical question because when evaluating the role was played and is played by the opposition, the general impression of people seems that the government, as well as the opposition, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}