Ranil, Kadirgamar talk on impasse

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar had lengthy discussions yesterday on how to cut through the current political crisis and make cohabitation government between the United National Front (UNF) and Peoples Alliance (PA) work.

The one-and-a-half hour, one-to-one discussions made no reference to any conditions or demands to President Chandrika Kumaratunga as reported in sections of the media, but the prime minister had expressed his serious concern that a "parallel government" was being enforced by the President.

Wickremesinghe cited some examples such as monies from the President's Fund being used for projects where the government has said there are no funds, and more seriously where instructions to the police and service chiefs were being countermanded by Kumaratunga in her capacity as commander-in-chief of the forces.

The prime minister complained that it was "impossible" to meet the president when he wanted to, nor was he able to contact her easily, a common complaint of even her own supporters.

The discussions revolved around how to make the French-style Sri Lankan constitution, introduced in 1978, work with an executive President from one party and the prime minister controlling parliament from another party, both elected by the people.

This is the second time such cohabitation has been put to the test in the past 22 years. The first was when Kumaratunga was the prime minister and the president was from Wickremesinghe's par-ty.

The system worked for the few months because the then Presi-dent Dingiri Banda Wijetunge cooperated with Kumaratunga.

Wickremesinghe had complained of the incumbent president being the constitutional head of the cabinet and working to bring its downfall at the same time.

He had said that he would not hesitate to call for another general election to show who is boss, but added that the first option would be to work towards cohabitation, especially to ensure stability for economic growth and to bring about a peaceful end to the island's two decade-old northern insurgency with minority Tamil guerrillas.

Former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, who on Monday denied any knowledge of a plan by sections of his party to topple the UNF regime and replace Wickremesinghe, gave the president's version of cohabitation, pointing out that the conduct of some ministers at Cabinet meetings presided over by Kuma-ratunga was "unacceptable".

He referred to the recent blow-up in the cabinet over some 40-odd armour protected vehicles being imported for VIPs outside tender procedures by Kumara-tunga's government last year, and said the controversy could have been better handled.

Kumaratunga was accused of importing some second-hand vehicles, mostly Mercedes Benz and BMWs, saying they were "custom-built".

The government appointed a ministerial committee to study the matter and has now handed the investigations to the police.

Wickremesinghe had re-iterated that he did not want to impeach Kumaratunga despite an outcry from the hardliners of his coalition, mostly those who were once in Kumaratunga's own coalition before crossing-over.

He, however, said investigations into past misdeeds when Kumaratunga ran the administration on her own from 1994-2000 would be probed.