Saturday 17th October, 2026

There seems to be no end in sight to controversies the JVP-NPP government creates. It has been reported that the ruling party parliamentary group has proposed that the no-confidence motion (NCM) submitted by the Opposition against Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne be referred to the Attorney General for his opinion and recommendations. Some Opposition politicians have claimed on social media that this move could be a bid to block the debate on the NCM. This is something that not even the SLPP-UNP government contemplated. The previous administration allowed an NCM to be moved against Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena in 2024 and defeated it.

Minister Bimal Rathnayake has gone on record as saying that the government is ready for a debate on the NCM against the Speaker. This is the government’s official position, but anything is possible in Sri Lankan politics characterised by about-turns. The government is wary of taking up the NCM at issue, which is a can of worms. Therefore, the possibility of the NPP doing everything possible to prevent a debate on it cannot be ruled out. It may have sent a trial balloon by leaking information about how it is planning to set about the task.

One may recall that in August 2025, the government effectively blocked an NCM against Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara, with the Speaker ruling that the motion was out of order. Thirty-two Opposition MPs, including Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, had submitted that motion against Jayasekara, raising serious concerns about a potential conflict of interest arising from his former military role and the ongoing investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. But the allegations against Jayasekera have not gone away.

If the government is planning to seek the Attorney General’s opinion as part of a strategy to scuttle the NCM against the Speaker, as reported, such action will be far more politically damaging than facing a debate on it. Legal experts inform us that there are no grounds on which the NCM at issue can be rejected.

Powerful governments have made a mockery of their commitment to upholding parliamentary traditions and good governance by playing politics with NCMs. One may recall that the JVP was among the political parties that condemned the J. R. Jayewardene government for abusing its steamroller majority to do something despicable to an NCM. In 1980, the Opposition sought to postpone the debate on an NCM it had moved against the then Speaker Bakeer Markar for backing President Jayewardene’s efforts to retain Abeyratne Pilapitiya as a UNP MP by nominating him to the Kalawana electorate despite a Supreme Court ruling that his election was void. Speaker Markar echoed President Jayewardene’s assertion that the Kalawana seat had not fallen vacant, and therefore a by-election was not warranted. The NCM against the Speaker was scheduled to be debated on 23 December, 1980, but the Opposition wanted it postponed in view of possible legal implications of the by-election the UNP was trying to avoid. But claiming that the NCM, moved by the Opposition, was of utmost national importance and therefore had to be debated urgently, the UNP government took it up, put it to the vote and defeated it! All UNP MPs, including the proposer and the seconder, voted against the NCM! The Opposition boycotted the NCM debate. The UNP will never be able to live down its shameful action.

The JVP-NPP government would do well to refrain from resorting to tactics that evoke memories of the governments the JVP vehemently condemned as dictatorial regimes and doing what not even its predecessors did. It is fervently hoped that the allegations about a move to block the NCM against the Speaker are not true.