Sri Lanka It's Happening

June 13, 2004

The UPFA has a grudge against the monks. Their decision to contest the recent elections deprived the UPFA the platform they were occupying. After the spin doctoring, re-positioning and retoric what eventually happened was that people who had voted in the past for the UNP voted for the monks and as a result the UPFA got the most number of seats but the remote control; the key to a majority in parliament lay with the monks.

The UPFA proabably thinks the disenchanted UNP supporters may have voted for them if not for the monks presenting themselves as an alternative. According to the monks a lot of under hand tactics were employed since then to get their support in parliament, culiminating in the sudden disapearence of two of their members and subsequent reappearence on the day of the first meeting of parliament. The UPFA has then found a scape goat for all their shorcoming (there are many) - the monks.

These two 'rebel' monks voted with the UPFA when electing the speaker of parliament but despite all it's efforts the UPFA lost anyway but not before two other monks voted with against the government candidate to nullify the effects of the so called rebel monks.

Since then after a lot of wrangling one of the rebel monks resigned his post, only to file a law suite saying he was forced to resign. The violence in parliament occured when the rebel monk's replacement attempted to take oaths. One of the victims of this attack has now been moved into intensive care.

Posted by raditha at June 13, 2004 2:38 PM