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සාමකාමී හා ශිෂ්ටසම්පන්නවීමේ වැදගත්කම
Victor Ivan
Ravaya
Elections are the highest exercise of popular sovereignty and a measure of a country's political civility — and on that measure Sri Lanka's record since 1977 offers only cause for shame. Every administration has used state resources and state media for its campaign; only once has election law been followed
Two days before the poll, Ivan states plainly that he does not want Fonseka to win — not because Rajapaksa's administration deserves protection, but because a change driven by hatred rather than a vision would leave the country in disorder, and anarchy is worse than bad government. Defeat would not
The Elections Commissioner has said he may have to withdraw from running the election because his orders are not obeyed — the police ignore him, and state media ignore the Competent Authority. However much authority the constitution grants him, nothing in the country lets him exercise it. This is not
The presidential contest can only end with one man winning and the other losing, and the system is built so that struggle runs on hatred rather than argument. Rajapaksa and Fonseka fought Prabhakaran on the same side and praised each other publicly; now each sees a traitor across the field,
Government figures have attacked the Tamil National Alliance's decision to back Sarath Fonseka, one claiming it could revive terrorism. The alliance did serve the LTTE's programme, but out of fear rather than conviction; with the LTTE defeated its representatives can act freely, and its local councillors have sung the national
Answering replies from Shiral Lakthilaka in Ravaya and Wasantha Wijenayake in Lanka, Ivan denies ever certifying the Rajapaksa administration as clean. His argument was that J.R. Jayewardene's political system was built to reward plunder, so every ruling party since 1977 has been corrupt by design — and the opposition attacks
The first presidential election after the defeat of Prabhakaran's de facto state ought to be about what kind of Sri Lanka replaces it, but the campaign has been consumed by trivia and mutual spite. Both main candidates are products of the war they won — Rajapaksa as commander-in-chief, Fonseka as
Three weeks before the January 2010 presidential election, Ivan argues the contest between Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka has taken the shape of a fight between two bazaar thugs rather than between democratic forces. Both camps breach the law on cutouts and posters, and neither the police nor the Elections
The presidential election decides state power, and it is being held without an elections commission, with all its powers resting in one commissioner. Ivan lists what a fair contest requires — the opposition left to campaign unobstructed, its supporters not intimidated — and reminds both sides that winner and loser
Corruption is the loudest subject of the campaign and the worst argued. Ivan says any administration's corruption deserves scrutiny at an election, then insists the opposition move from rumour to specific proof — and gives his own examples, among them a broadcasting licence written into a regulator's own name and
Sovereignty is exercised at elections, Ivan writes, and Sri Lanka's record of holding them on time is better than its record of holding them freely. He sets out why no elections commission was ever appointed under the 17th Amendment, names who advised against it, and tells voters to make the
Abolishing the executive presidency is not the simple act it is being sold as. Ivan traces the underlying philosophy of the system, the cost the country pays for its irregularity, and the size of the cabinet — quoting the United Front's own 1994 manifesto promising no more than twenty ministers
Where should Sri Lanka stand after winning the war? Ivan says that is the question the election ought to be about, and instead both sides are throwing accusations. Abolishing the executive presidency in 180 days means nothing until someone says what replaces it; and if corruption is the great challenge,
The General's arrival lifted the anti-government forces but has not yet built him a position to win from. Ivan reads the signs — the JVP still absent from his poster campaign, the UNP machine uneasy beneath its enthusiasm, no answer on the minorities or on abolishing the executive presidency —
Fonseka's fundamental rights petition says he had six hundred guards, ten escort vehicles and two bulletproof cars as Chief of Defence Staff, and a fraction of that as a candidate. Ivan says he should have proper protection both as the commander who won the war and as the main challenger
The UNP and the JVP brought the General forward partly to force a parliamentary election first, Ivan argues, and the president wrong-footed them by calling the presidential one early. He compares the two men as political animals — one seasoned and cured, the other still an apprentice — and says
Lifting the restrictions on travel south from the Jaffna peninsula is a good first step, Ivan writes, and the high security zones should go the same way now that the threat that justified them is gone. He asks for the military atmosphere to be dismantled rather than displayed, and for
Winning the election will not save a president who cannot look back honestly at his own record, Ivan argues. He sets the strengths against the limits — the war won, the family's grip, the corruption and nepotism, the scale of the cabinet — and says the victory was an opening
The right to strike is a fundamental trade union right, Ivan writes, but it is a weapon to be used with social responsibility and at a decisive moment, not for narrow party ends. He reads the work-to-rule at petroleum, electricity and the ports as a campaign run through union structures
The victory over the LTTE made Mahinda Rajapaksa a giant and every other politician a dwarf, so the opposition answered a hero with a hero. Ivan weighs General Fonseka's candidacy — the silence about what he stands for, the JVP's and the UNP's incompatible expectations of him, and the record
