Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) Leader Rauff Hakeem, in an emotional speech, said in Parliament yesterday that his party had been placed in a worse predicament after it tried to unseat former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Making his remarks during the debate on electoral reforms, he said, “See our plight today. We tried to unseat Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa. But we are now in a worse predicament.

Mr. Hakeem said that there was a dictator in the government. Then Opposition MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara asked him who had gazetted the electoral reforms.

Mr. Hakeem replied, “We did not do it. There is a kitchen Cabinet. The United National Party (UNP) has a proprietary attitude towards these electoral reforms. I am not a cat’s paw of the Prime Minister. A dictatorial behaviour of this nature in the evolution of electoral reforms has never been seen before.”

The Opposition asked who this dictator was. Mr. Hakeem, who is also the Urban Development Minister, said, “It is not the President. It is those aspiring for the presidency. These elements even try to capture the power of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). (Kelum Bandara and Yohan Perera)