BBC NEWS | South Asia | Sri Lanka's strained cohabitation



By Frances Harrison BBC correspondent in Colombo

Sri Lanka's Supreme Court ruling - that there must be a referendum on government plans to limit the president's powers - confirmed what had been known for many days.

Jaffna refugees
Ending the disruption of war is a high priority
The bid by the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe to curb the powers of the president began with a wish to create an atmosphere of political stability for the peace process to flourish.

It has ended up exacerbating strains within the government of cohabitation, where the president and prime minister come from rival parties.

The government argued the president's power to dissolve parliament one year after elections could be a destabilising factor.

Snap election 'unlikely'

Now, ironically, it is the government that has been talking of the possible need to dissolve parliament to hold new polls.

Although the idea of new elections is being bandied about, it is still thought unlikely they will take place:

Politicians on all sides are believed to be short of money for campaigning
the minority parties supporting the government do not want new polls for fear they will lose seats
and even the governing United National Front cannot hope to do significantly better or gain a two-thirds majority in new polls.

Leverage

So, the likelihood is the current parliament will remain and the prime minister and president will have to find a way to work together, with the government accepting the extent of the president's powers.

But that assumes the prime minister can maintain his majority in the House.

For that he needs to resolve the current crisis within his ally, the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress (SLMC).

Of the party's 12 MPs in parliament, somewhere between five and nine of them are currently rebelling against the party leader over the issue of a separate Muslim interim council in the east.

This rebellion has now become the most pressing problem for the prime minister, and, if he can resolve it, he clearly has more leverage in his relationship with the president.