Dive into an archive of over 5,000+ published articles…
Archives: Articles
ජනාධිපතිනියට ද කොකා පෙන්නුවේය
Victor Ivan
Ravaya
At last week's Cabinet meeting the President reportedly accused the Prime Minister of conspiring with the Chief Justice to bring the election forward to 2005 and bury the tsunami-funds inquiry against him. Ivan observes that, as ticks leave a dying dog, parasites abandon a failing leader, and shows how the
The Auditor General's report on tsunami recovery up to 30 June 2005 is now public. Of 48,974 houses destroyed, only 1,055, about 2 per cent of the need, had been completed by 4 August, and the report lists irregularities in the Rs 5,000 allowance payments. Under the subhead 'Do we
Who will win the presidential election? Testing the JVP's claim that an SLFP–JVP alliance would have won in 2001, Ivan analyses the party results of the 2000, 2001 and 2004 parliamentary elections, reproduced in tables, to weigh the size of the Sinhala-Buddhist vote each candidate can draw on.
Sinhala Buddhist Vote Base and the Presidential Election
Victor Ivan
Business Today
Six weeks before the 2005 presidential election, Victor Ivan works through whether it can be won on Sinhala Buddhist votes alone. He begins by conceding the JVP's pre-2004 argument was arithmetically sound: had the SLFP, JVP and EPDP contested together in 2001 they would have outpolled the UNP-led alliance by
The presidential election is being held with neither an Elections Commission nor a Constitutional Council, leaving the Elections Commissioner, the man the 17th Amendment has hurt most, 'caught like an areca nut in the cutter'. A second section, on the rule of law and the Chief Justice, counts the motion
Lacking the wisdom to untie simple knots, Sri Lanka has let them grow into tangles, and the people pay the price. The editorial notes that the investigation into Judge Ambepitiya's murder identified an underworld figure as the mastermind, and urges voters to make the candidates present, without lies, their vision
Mahinda Rajapaksa is near the top, a remarkable feat in a party dominated by one family, and he got there not as a Bandaranaike retainer. Ivan weighs Chandrika Kumaratunga's decision not to fight him at the convention, and his bold readiness to meet Prabhakaran against his pact with the JVP
Three teachers of D.S. Senanayake College have been sentenced to two years in prison for beating a student. The editorial does not doubt their guilt but finds the punishment excessive, and notes that the courts, once respected, have become a subject of public controversy.
Back from Japan, the President did not quarrel with Mahinda Rajapaksa but backed his candidacy, leaving herself room for a later return. Mahinda is now in a bind: saying yes to the JVP's conditions will cost him some of the forces gathering around him.
Any democracy needs a balance between legislature, executive and judiciary. Sri Lanka is sliding into a failed state, though its educated class rejects the label, and the neglect of the 17th Amendment shows it: there is still no Constitutional Council, and neither candidate seems interested in setting one up.
The SLFP marked its 54th anniversary and the UNP its 59th on the same day. Every head of state since independence has come through these two parties, yet after more than five decades neither has modernised or allowed internal democracy.
Like the civet in the saying who ate a seeded banana, the JVP tried to swallow the SLFP and cannot digest it; now it can only hang on Mahinda Rajapaksa's neck, and Wimal Weerawansa says any deal will be with Mahinda, not the SLFP.
The Cabinet has decided to give the retiring President an acre and a half facing the Diyawanna Oya opposite Parliament, in lieu of the pension and official residence she says she will forgo. The note recalls her plan for a Rs 1,700 million presidential palace in the same area.
Ranil Wickremesinghe has told his MPs he is thinking of how to use the retiring President's services, and spoke of American provisions for former presidents. The editorial welcomes cooperation between the two main parties but says retiring presidents must also face scrutiny, since immunity shields them while in office.
The Chief Justice is playing a political conjuror. Ivan argues that the crisis over the election year was his own creation, from the circumstances of the President's first public swearing-in after the bomb attack to the story of a second oath, invented to stretch her term by a year, and
Victor Ivan argues that Sri Lanka has become, or is fast becoming, a failed state — a term its academics resist because they fear UN administration, while making no serious intervention to correct the country's course. His test is the constitution: legislature, executive and judiciary alike decline to respect it,
The presidential race has begun, but on trivia rather than the country's main problems. Taking public transport and another pressing issue as examples of about a dozen, the editorial says voters should demand to know what solutions the candidates offer.
Leftward forces gather around Mahinda Rajapaksa and rightward ones around Ranil Wickremesinghe; Mahinda is new, Ranil old. The editorial argues that a candidate must lead his own movement, so either Chandrika must hand Mahinda the power willingly or he must take it without splitting the party.
The Chief Justice's only way out of a great crisis over the election year was to rule for 2005, ending the President's dream of staying until 2006, though she still has cards to play. Ivan warns that the country is caught in a cycle of political violence and that the
The Elections Commissioner has the constitutional power to fix the date and has already decided, but the Supreme Court's view is unclear. The editorial argues that the oath the President took publicly on 22 December 1999 should be accepted, so that her term ends on 22 December 2005, and notes
