COLOMBO Sri Lanka's shaky minority government Friday won a 10-day reprieve by temporarily delaying an opposition move to topple it, officials said. President Chandrika Kumaratunga's People's Alliance (PA) once again resisted opposition moves to set July 16 as the date for a no-confidence motion against her, parliamentary officials said. According to Reuters, politicians said the PA, which lost its parliamentary majority last month, was trying to buy time until October 10, when Kumaratunga will be empowered by the Constitution to dissolve the House and call snap elections. But the opposition hit back Friday by submitting another resolution, seeking to establish that its ranks now have a majority in the 225-member assembly. Parliament Speaker Anura Bandaranaike said he will allow the vote at the next sitting of the legislature on July 16. It would be the first vote in the House since a key Muslim ally defected June 20 from the ruling coalition, taking with him a total of seven seats to the opposition and reducing the government to a four-seat minority. The combined opposition also submitted a resolution, scheduling the vote of no-confidence against the government for July 18, and to be voted upon that same week. On Wednesday, the People's Alliance blocked opposition moves to schedule a no-confidence vote in Parliament this month and said the earliest date for the crucial test would be in August. Kumaratunga would have faced a vote in Parliament Friday for the monthly ratification of emergency rule, but on Thursday she allowed the tough laws to lapse. The emergency had been in place since March 1983. Instead of facing a test in Parliament over emergency laws, she invoked other provisions of the similarly tough Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to combat Tamil rebels and other anti-government elements. The PTA does not require monthly approval by the legislature. Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake said on national television Thursday that the Parliament will be informed of the new measures at the earliest moment, but the PTA regulations were not taken up Friday. "We have to be realistic. We were told that the opposition will not vote for the emergency in its previous form," Wickremanayake said. "That is why we resorted to this alternative measure." Wickremanayake expressed confidence that their party will survive the no-trust vote, but hinted that it may not be able to maintain stability unless other parties provide support. Political sources said that there were hectic moves to woo minority parties as the government and the opposition tried to shore up their numbers in the 225-member assembly. Political sources said the president could dismiss Parliament for two months to avoid an embarrassing legislative defeat if the PA was unsure of its majority.