Key Muslim ally sets deadline for Sri Lanka coalition

Key Muslim ally sets deadline for Sri Lanka coalition
ASSOCIATED FRANCE PRESSE

OCT 14: Sri Lanka's main Muslim party Saturday issued a 100-day deadline to President Chandrika Kumaratunga to implement controversial constitutional reforms or risk a collapse of the country's shaky new coalition.

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), whose support helped Kumaratunga's People's Alliance (PA) form a coalition, fired the first salvo against Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake.

The coalition was formed Friday, along with the regional Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP). The SLMC, which became kingmaker after bagging 10 seats in Tuesday's election, said it was opposed to Prime Minister Wickremanayake's call for an all-out military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). "I am totally opposed to what the PM has said," Hakeem said. "We have not spoken to the other Tamil parties as yet, but there is a need to leave a door open to have talks with the LTTE." The Tigers have been fighting a decades-old war for an independent state in the country's northern Jaffna peninsula.

On Saturday, the SLMC's joint-leader Rauf Hakeem reiterated the party wanted to be "fiercely independent" and warned Kumaratunga their support was based on "irrevocable conditions" and that they would not hesitate to pull out if their demands were not met. The SLMC would use its newly-won leverage to usher in a new democratic political culture in this majority Sinhala Buddhist nation, he added.

President Kumaratunga said before Tuesday's election that a Norwegian-backed peace bid with the Tamil Tigers had been put on hold because she was convinced the guerrillas were not interested in peace negotiations. Hakeem said he was giving President Kumaratunga's administration 100 days to press ahead with a draft Constitution Bill which envisages turning the country into a de facto federal state. The Bill, which failed to win approval in the previous parliament in August for want of a two-thirds majority, also sought to establish independent commissions to manage the police, elections, the judiciary and the civil service.

The President vowed to enact the new constitution even if she failed to muster the two-thirds majority, adding she would do so by turning the Parliament into a constituent Assembly. "We have a condition that in the first 100 days they must have the independent commissions and the draft Bill implemented," Hakeem said. "It is a package deal.

"Hakeem also asked the Tiger rebels to be "practical and enter talks," saying it was in the interest of the main Opposition United National Party (UNP) to support the constitution reform bid. Hakeem held talks with the UNP before pledging support to Kumaratunga's party. Hakeem said the UNP was "selfish" and wanted to form a government of its own with Muslim support just to get into power. "We had no confidence in the UNP to put together a disparate coalition." In exchange for its support to the government, the Muslim party is getting two cabinet portfolios, "three or four" junior ministries and another "two or three seats" in parliament, Hakeem added.