The government and its opponents are gearing up for the upcoming no-faith motion against Deputy Minister of Defence Maj. Gen. (retd.) Aruna Jayasekera. It is certainly a bout above the Opposition’s weight class, given the NPP’s mammoth majority in Parliament.
Not all Opposition parties are speaking with one voice on the no-faith motion against Jayasekera. Some of them are of the view that the motion will provide the government with an opportunity to have its MPs vote en bloc against it and debunk the Opposition’s claim that there is a rift in the NPP parliamentary group. This however does not mean that some Opposition parties are going to vote against the motion or abstain when it is put to the vote.
Is the Opposition’s no-faith motion against Jayasekera ill-conceived? Should no-confidence motions be moved if they cannot be won? Will the government be able to stop attacks on Jayasekera once and for all by simply defeating the no-faith motion against him? How will the motion affect the government politically? These are some of the questions being asked in political circles. They should be viewed against the backdrop of a rhetorical question Minister Samantha Vidyaratne has raised about a previous no-faith motion.
Pointing out that the Opposition politicians who are out for Jayasekera’s scalp include some MPs who defeated a no-confidence motion against Keheliya Rambukwella over a procurement scandal he had been involved in as the Minister of Health, Vidyaratne has asked, at a public event, whether such politicians have any moral right to seek the ouster of Jayasekera. Thus, a motion of no confidence has a moral dimension which can be used to appeal to public conscience whether it is passed or defeated.
It was the aforementioned no-faith motion that helped the then Opposition hold the entire SLPP-UNP government accountable for what Rambukwella had done and turn public opinion against all his defenders. One of the main reasons for the humiliating defeats of the UNP and the SLPP in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2024 was their shameful defence of Rambukwella, who was subsequently arrested and prosecuted for the procurement of fake drugs among other things.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe refused to act on allegations against Rambukwella and audaciously dared the Opposition to move a no-faith motion. He apparently thought the problem would end with the defeat of the no-faith motion against Rambukwella. He was mistaken. The present-day NPP leaders are sounding just like Wickremesinghe; they are vowing to defeat the no-faith motion against Deputy Minister Jayasekera.
If not for the no-faith motion against Rambukwella, the then Opposition would not have been able to lump him, President Ranil Wickremesinghe and all SLPP MPs together and tar them with the same brush. It was obvious from the very beginning that there was no way the Opposition could secure the passage of that no-confidence motion in the last Parliament, where the SLPP-UNP government had a working majority, but it went ahead and succeeded in inflicting heavy political damage on that administration.
The debate on the no-faith motion against Rambukwella provided the Opposition with an opportunity to draw public attention to the allegations against him and gain a great deal of political mileage. Having defended Rambukwella, the SLPP and the UNP could not dissociate themselves from him, much less deflect criticism.
Allegations against Deputy Minister Jayasekera may be different from those which led to the no-faith motion against Rambukwella, but the NPP will take a political gamble by defending him and getting involved in his mess, with the Opposition planning a broader campaign against him outside Parliament. Jayasekera was the Security Forces Commander in the Eastern Province in 2019, when the National Thowheed Jamath, a terrorist group based in the East, unleashed barbaric terror, killing more than 275 people.
How can the government claim that Jayaskera had not received any actionable intelligence about the NTJ’s plan? This is the question the Opposition has been asking. It has been pointed out that there is a clear conflict of interest on the part of the government. Fr. Cyril Gamini Fernando, Spokesman for Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, has said the fact that Jayasekera is holding the post of Deputy Defence Minister could adversely affect the credibility of the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks.
Thus, one can argue that there is much more to a no-faith motion than its defeat or passage. Situations arise in politics where even defeated no-faith motions can be used against governments effectively on the political front. This seems to be the current Opposition’s strategy.
