By Easwaran Rutnam Despite all the chaos in Parliament last week and the disrespectful manner in which some parliamentarians behaved, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran remained confident that the public had not yet lost faith in the legislature as a whole, but only in the party that was disrupting proceedings. Sumanthiran also feared the political crisis would have negative impacts on the process to reach a political solution for the Tamil people. Following are excerpts of the interview with The Sunday Morning:   How do you see the developments which took place over the past few days? Ordinarily, in any part of the world, if a government loses majority, the prime minister would immediately resign. But here, Mahinda Rajapaksa did not have majority even to start with, but he was made prime minister in an illegal way. The President had no powers to do that. Yet the parties waited to see if he could demonstrate a majority in the house. After a lot of horse trading and bribing of MPs, they couldn’t bridge the gap. So the President first prorogued Parliament to avoid a vote of confidence and then he dissolved Parliament, but the parties went to court and the dissolution was stayed. That is how Parliament was able to meet on the 14th. So this is a very strange situation, where patently Mahinda Rajapaksa does not have majority.   Is this situation likely to have a negative impact on the country as a whole? Yes. The progress made by the country has all been lost, and today, there is no government actually in law. On 14 November when the No-confidence Motion was passed, the Constitution says the cabinet stands dissolved. So there is no cabinet. This is an attempt to hang on to power even by force. That is what is happening.   The TNA has been making a strong push for a political solution for the Tamils. Do you feel this situation will see that process taking a backseat? Certainly it will affect that. We were at the threshold of putting out an expert draft Constitution. It was to come out on 7 November. But these issues started on 26 October, so the draft was incomplete. So yes, I can’t see much movement in the process in the near future. But it all depends on what kind of compromise the President is willing to make in the light of a majority in Parliament not accepting what he has done.   Social media has been abuzz after what took place in Parliament last week and many have been slamming Parliament. Many seem to have lost faith in the legislature. Do you think it has come to such a situation? I don’t think the public have lost faith in the legislature. They have lost faith in the party that is disrupting proceedings in the legislature. I would say Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had some popularity in the country, has lost it now. When his MPs were misbehaving in the chamber he was just standing there smiling. The country saw it. I would think nobody would want to return him to power.