Flash News

[kuruvikal]

<span style='color:red'>MONKS Vs MARXISTS IN SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENT

Sri Lanka's president has lost a bid to secure the parliamentary speaker's seat, thwarting her chances of extending her term in office.

Seeking a majority in the hung parliament, President Chandrika Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance sought to install a member of the Marxist JVP as speaker.

However influential Buddhist monks, who hold the balance of power in the parliament, decided not to support the President's candidate.

"There is no way we could have the first communist speaker of the House," a spokesman for the monks told AFP.

"We planned to remain neutral, but when we saw the government engineering defections, we wanted to neutralise it."

In unprecedented scenes during the vote, ruling party legislators threw paper missiles and files at the monks who ensured victory for opposition candidate WJM Lokubandara.

Political analysts said it was crucial for Ms Kumaratunga to secure the speaker's post if she wanted to change the constitution to abolish the executive presidency and revert to a Westminster-style government.

Unless she changes the constitution, she will be constrained by the present 1978 statute which limits presidents to two terms. Her second six-year term ends December 2005. </span>

Thanks sbs.com and tamilcanadian.com