Legislators and Representation in Sri Lanka: The Decentralization of Development Planning by Robert C Oberst

Author:Robert C Oberst [Oberst, Robert C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History & Theory, Social Science, Political Science, World, Asian, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780367008055
Google: Z3akDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49898133
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Parliamentary Group

The government parliamentary group is made up of all MPs who support the governing party or coalition.4 This in the past has included coalition partners, independents and appointed members. This group meets regularly prior to each meeting of parliament5 to discuss the business before the assembly and to approve the legislative proposals of the cabinet. In practice, the group's influence is limited and dependent on the amount of power that the leaders of the cabinet are willing to give it. It has been noted that the group has: gone through periods in which it has accepted the power of the cabinet from 1948 to 1952 (Wilson, 1974:302); been provided a veto power over some legislation under the government of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike from 1956 to 1959; and been given the power to pass legislation under the governments of John Kotelawala from 1952 to 1956 and the first government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike from 1960 to 1954 (Wilson, 1966). Prime minister John Kotelawala was known to bring some issues to the parliamentary group before they went to the cabinet, while Sirimavo Bandaranaike during her first government would go to the parliamentary group on important matters before going to the cabinet (Wilson, 1966:18-19).6 Another observer has noted that the parliamentary group of Dudley Senanayake's government from 1965 to 1970 "continued to play an active role" (Kearney, 1973:44-45). It is apparent that the parliamentary group's power has varied from parliament to parliament.

It would appear that there is a distinct difference between the use of the parliamentary group by the two parties. The SLFP appears to have permitted far more backbench input into law-making than has the more unified UNP. One observer of the Sri Lankan party system in the 1960s has written that

almost every policy considered or presented by the cabinet or a minister involves a campaign among the backbencher constituents of the party [SLFP], and the decisions of an SLFP government are often the product of a primary election held among its own members (Woodward, 1969:196).

Of the UNP he has written that "policy is still primarily a function of the leadership." It is clear that the parliamentary group of the Seventh Parliament had more influence over policy than does the group in the Eighth Parliament. Nevertheless, both groups had limited control over their government's policy.

The government parliamentary groups of the two parliaments studied here were part of two distinctively different governments, The government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike was a coalition government and constantly had to accomodate two ideological factions within it. Both the left and right factions had their supporters in the cabinet and both groups attempted to use the parliamentary group to win their case. In the Eighth Parliament, the government of J.R. Jayawardene has been highly unified on policy matters and little dissension appears to exist.7 Under these conditions, the parliamentary group of t e Seventh Parliament had more policy influence than did the group in the Eighth Parliament.

Despite the differences between the two parliaments, the members of both were generally critical of their role and influence in the group meetings.

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