Five Interesting Facts from the History of Sri Lanka's Governance

When it comes to the history of Sri Lanka’s government, there are some incidents and facts not

widely known or are known mainly by the older generation of Sri Lankans due to many years passing

since its occurrence. In this article, I am compiling five interesting facts from the history of Sri Lanka’s

governance. It begins 87 years ago.

1. Ministers without Ministries

Before Sri Lanka’s (then Ceylon) Independence in 1948, from 1931 to 1947 there were Ministers but no Ministries under the Donoughmore Constitution. I wonder how the government functioned at this time without Ministries. A possibility I can see is that there was a group of staff under all Ministers performing the responsibilities of Ministerial staff.

2. Ministers without Portfolios

Sri Lanka's first Cabinet was appointed 71 years ago on the 14th of October 1947, the day of the first session of Sri Lanka’s Parliament known then as the House of Representatives. In this Cabinet, there was a Minister (R.S.S. Gunawardena) without a portfolio. He was also Chief Government Whip who was unseated via an election petition on the 12th of March 1948. R.S.S. Gunawardena continued to function in his positions until replacements were made in May 1948. Interestingly his successor A.E. Goonesinghe also functioned as a Minister without Portfolio and a Chief Government Whip, though he also got assigned the Minister of State portfolio on the 26th of July that year. I’m interested to know what these Ministers functions were. Perhaps their work included working on topics not covered in the other Ministerial portfolios. 

3. Parliament with Two Houses

As pointed out above, Parliament was known as the House of Representatives at the time of Sri Lanka’s independence. The House of Representatives was one of two houses of Parliament, with the House of Representatives being the Lower House and the Senate of Ceylon being the Upper House. The House of Representatives at its first sitting had 101 MPs, with 95 elected and six appointed by the then Governor-General who represented Britain’s monarch. The Senate had 30 members with 15 members being elected by the House of Representatives and 15 nominated by the Governor-General on the Prime Minister’s advice. The Senate was led by a President and it enabled a system of accountability towards the House of Representatives. This institution continued until its abolishment in 1971. I intend to write about the Senate of Ceylon in a future article.

4. The First Speaker Standing Up to the Prime Minister

The first Speaker Francis Molamure is reported to have told Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake to take his seat. Nihal Seneviratne, former Secretary-General of Parliament revealed in a conversation (video in link) with political scientist Asoka Obeyesekere that he was told that the first Speaker said to Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake: “Honourable Prime Minister, I think you are being irrelevant. Please take your seat.” I hope to see this happen again.

5. Two MPs for Kalawana

Following the 1977 general election, there were two people claiming the seat of Kalawana, a town 106

km from Colombo in the Ratnapura district. The seat was won by Mr. Abeyratne Pilapitiya of the

United National Party (UNP), the party which won the general election. For some reason, it was

challenged by Mr. Sarath Muttetuwegama of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) who

contested against him via an election petition. Mr. Pilapitiya was involved with an accident, and stayed

away from Parliament without requesting leave. As a result of this, he lost his seat which was

believed to be an intentional move on his part. His party then nominated him to fill the vacancy,

changing his position from an elected MP to a nominated MP. In late 1980, the election petition result

in the Supreme Court unseated Mr. Pilapitiya and a by-election was conducted in January 1981 that

elected Mr. Sarath Muttetuwegama.

At about the same time, the government led by then President J.R. Jayewardene brought in a bill, the Third Amendment to the Constitution that would enable the Kalawana electorate to have two MPs, one elected and the other nominated. The Supreme Court ruled that this amendment required both a two-thirds majority and a referendum. Though the bill was passed with a two-thirds majority, a referendum was not held. This issue was concluded with Mr. Pilapitiya resigning resulting in Mr.Muttetuwegama taking his seat as the MP for Kalawana. This shows an instance of the judiciary preventing presidential abuse of power.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed these five facts from the history of Sri Lanka’s governance. I’d be interested in

hearing from anyone who remembers any of these happenings, knows more details or has similar

stories they’d like to share.

Thoughts on the Avengers: Endgame Trailer

The teaser trailer for the upcoming Marvel superhero film “Avengers 4” has just been released. The

trailer revealed that the film’s title is “Avengers: Endgame”. This is a highly anticipated film for 2019

as it continues the story from “Avengers: Infinity War” that was released in April this year. I enjoyed

“Avengers: Infinity War” which I thought was a good, entertaining film that balanced well all the

different groups of characters together. I warn readers that there will be spoilers for “Avengers: Infinity War” here. In this post, I’ll be giving my thoughts on the trailer and the film. First, I’m embedding the trailer below that you can watch.

I like it how the trailer opens with Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Benatar spaceship who is sending a

message to his girlfriend and fiance Pepper Potts. I like the scenes of Tony in space aboard the

spaceship. These scenes seem reminiscent of the film “The Martian” which I like. The trailer also

shows a bit of the place where Thanos was at the end of Infinity War with Thanos’s hand going over

some alien plants. We see footage at the Avengers facility featuring conversations between Steve

Rogers/Captain America and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. There is an image that almost

certainly tells us that Shuri, the sister of T’Challa/Black Panther was killed as a result of the

Decimation (the official name for the moment when Thanos snapped his fingers and killed half of all

life in the universe). We also see Nebula aboard the spaceship and she puts her hand on someone

who is probably Tony. I’d imagine that they are together in the spaceship and the reason we didn’t see her at the start is either because Tony is in his quarters or she let him be by himself for his personal message to Pepper.

There is a moment where Natasha and Clint Barton/Hawkeye are in Japan, with presumably Natasha going to Japan to find him. I’m pleased that part of this film is set in Japan, as I like it when Hollywood films have scenes in Eastern countries. Steve and Natasha talk about a plan of theirs, and we still don’t know what their plan is. I suspect and hope that it is the rumoured time travel. The trailer ends with Scott Lang/Ant-Man requesting entry into the Avengers facility suggesting that he may be the key to defeating Thanos.

This trailer is not what I was expecting. Through it is 2 minutes and 25 seconds long, it feels shorter

than that and raises more questions than answers. It feels very different to the first “Avengers: Infinity

War” trailer released about a year ago. A difference between the two trailers is the fact that the first

“Avengers: Infinity War” trailer was a full trailer whereas the “Avengers: Endgame” trailer is only a

teaser trailer. It’s interesting that this trailer showed no action scenes. I know that as this film is a

massive blockbuster it will have a lot of action, but I hope this means that “Avengers: Endgame” will

have more slow scenes than “Avengers: Infinity War” as there are additional heroes in this film most

notably Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Hope van Dyne/The Wasp and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel.

There is something interesting about the title. The directors Joe and Anthony Russo said in an

interview earlier this year that the title of “Avengers 4” wasn’t spoken in Infinity War, yet Doctor Strange told Tony in the film “We’re in the end game now”. I will add that Doctor Strange likely said

end game as two words instead of endgame as one word like in the film’s title. However, this shows

that filmmakers frequently lie about their films and I want to give my thoughts on another point the

filmmakers of “Avengers: Endgame” have said about the film. When Avengers 3 and 4 were

announced in October 2014, it was to be “Avengers: Infinity War - Part 1” and “Avengers: Infinity War

- Part 2”. In July 2016, Marvel began referring to the film as an “Untitled Avengers” film instead of

Infinity War Part 2. The film remained that way until this trailer which revealed the title as “Avengers:

Endgame”. The writers of both films, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have said that

Avengers 3 and 4 are very different films which aren’t part one and two of the same story. I don’t

doubt that the two films will be different, but I think these films can be both part one and two while

also being different and having their unique identity. One reason why I believe this is the case is

because Infinity War ended with Thanos winning with half of the life in the universe dying. This makes the story incomplete and bad for the heroes where the heroes need to undo the Decimation that is expected to happen in Endgame.

However, I will go into ways it could be different based on how I’d like to see Endgame turn out. One

thing unique about Infinity War is the fact that the villain Thanos had the most screen time and that

the film was almost from his point of view. I don’t expect that to be the case in this film. I hope that in

Endgame, Tony Stark has the most screen time as he’s my favourite Marvel Cinematic Universe

(MCU) character. I hope the fact that he opens the trailer is a sign of this. While Infinity War is a sci-fi

film, it also had a lot of fantasy elements making it a sci-fi/fantasy film. I’m a sci-fi fan, but not a

fantasy fan so I found the fantasy aspects to be not the best parts of Infinity War. There were the side villains the Children of Thanos who I thought were weak villains and didn’t like their fantasy

appearance. I hope that Endgame doesn’t have so many fantasy elements and is more of a sci-fi film than Infinity War. I hope that Endgame’s equivalent to the battle of Wakanada won’t have the fantasy villain creatures. From the trailer, this film does look more sci-fi which I like.

So that was some of my thoughts on the “Avengers: Endgame” trailer and film. While I would have

liked to have seen more of the film, I think it is a good trailer which I found moving and it got me more

excited for the film. I’m interested in hear other people’s thoughts/theories on the film. It’s less than

six months to go!