Colombo (The Uttam Hindu): The Sri Lankan Parliament on Tuesday unanimously appointed ruling National People's Power (NPP) member Jagath Wickramaratne as its new Speaker. Wickramaratne was nominated by Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, and the Leader of the House Bimal Ratnayake supported her proposal. No other names were proposed, and Deputy Speaker Rizvie Salih announced to the House that Wickremeratne was unanimously appointed as the new Speaker, Xinhua news agency reported.
On December 13, Sri Lanka's Parliament Speaker Asoka Sapumal Ranwala resigned in the wake of controversy over his educational qualification. Earlier, the opposition parties accused the Speaker of lying about holding a PhD from a Japanese university. In a statement, Ranwala clarified that he had never lied about his educational qualification, but admitted that he currently lacks documentary proof of his academic achievements. He said that he had been awarded a doctorate by a research institute affiliated with Waseda University in Japan and hoped to present the degree certificate in the future.
"However, given the confusion surrounding the issue and to prevent embarrassment for those who trusted and voted for this government, I have decided to resign from the post of speaker for the time being," Ranwala said. The resignation was prompted by an attempt by the opposition to bring a no-confidence motion against the Speaker for misleading the public about his educational qualifications. Ranwala was one of the 159 National People's Power (NPP) members elected after the party's historic landslide victory in the November 14 parliamentary election. He had been on the job for less than a month after being elected as the Speaker on November 21. Ranwala was a leading trade union activist for the NPP's mother party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), in the petroleum sector as an employee of the state fuel entity Ceylon Petroleum Corporation.