Sri Lanka's ruling party and the main opposition party in a rare show of unity joined together Monday to vote in favor of the country's defense allocations for 2005 on Monday.

The ruling United People's Freedom Alliance and the main opposition United National Party (UNP) voted for the defense ministry budgetary allocation of little over 56.2 billion rupees (about 536 million US dollars), up 8 percent compared with the allocation for 2004.

The other opposition parties, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the all Buddhist Monk Heritage Party or the JHU also supported the vote.

However, the main Tamil party the Tamil National Alliance opposed the vote along with a solitary legislator from the UNP who is also Tamil.

The vote was approved with 140 votes to 22. The Defense Ministry vote is crucial for the maintenance of Sri Lanka's armed forces and the police.

Although the fighting in the north and east has ceased with the ongoing ceasefire agreement and the Norwegian-backed peace process, the allocations increase every year due to payments rolling over for purchases of military hardware made during the height of the ethnic war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels.

Source: Xinhua