No confidence motions against the Government – under what pretext?

Generally, no confidence motions are taken up on a major matter, where the opposition believes they can garner sufficient support from Govt. members to win the motion and then force the Govt. to resign, as a means to request for a new election, and hopefully a change of government. That was the system practiced in Sri Lanka before the new Constitution of May 1972, and seemed to work well, when matters of national interest sparked Parliamentarians to vote their conscience.

However today, where people spend money to get into Parliament, they certainly don’t want an election before their time, and before they have made enough money in the present parliament both to contest the next, and keep enough in reserve for their families for Generations to come! It is this control that the Presidential system affords that keeps MP’s as nothing more than obeying dogs, if they are in government who are ONLY fed if they behave, and eliminated at the first sign of betrayal.

It is in this context that we must view the UNP decision to hold a no-confidence motion, on the grounds that the Country is being ridden with drugs, becoming one of the main transshipment points in the drug trade to boot, and drug dealers as top parliamentarians!

If this motion had NO chance of it being passed, then why was it brought? If it was to publicize the drug issue as being of sufficient national importance that a secret ballot be permitted and MPs allowed to vote freely, then agitation for an independent vote nationwide SHOULD have been done as part of the pre planning for this as the request for the motion was put in May 2014, and there was sufficient time to plan a national campaign of agitation against the proliferation and abuse of hard drug use in Sri Lanka.

It is the duty of the opposition to bring ALL acts of lawlessness, and complicity of the Govt. in all crime to the public’s attention, so the public is able to make up their mind on how they feel. It is also a fact that they (the public) appear to endorse illegality on the part of the Govt. as long as it does not affect them personally and when it does they are the isolated ones affected, and so no one else gives a damn about their plight!

In a society where the level of public integrity has sunk where people honestly cannot distinguish right from wrong, and where parliament is replete with criminals, why go for silly motions, that are lost on the public and media alike?