Referring to that week's Ravaya lead story on the Chief Justice's links with the criminal Rohana Kumara, a charge already in the UNP–JVP impeachment motion, the editorial says Sarath N. Silva has disgraced his office. It notes that the new government has done nothing, and urges it to restore judicial
The report details the arrest of Rohana Kumara, fourth suspect in the February 2001 shooting of businessman Ranjith Bandara Wijekoon at the Peradeniya botanical gardens, and his alleged ties to Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva. It cites phone records, his use of a Justice Ministry vehicle, his role at the
Ivan sets out Ravaya's stance after the change of government. He rejects the claim that the paper makes and unmakes governments, explains why it backed the SLFP before 1994 and turned against Chandrika Kumaratunga after the 1997 and Wayamba election violence, and states its positions on the UNP government, the
The Judicial Services Commission has answered the criticism in an International Bar Association report on the state of the Sri Lankan judiciary. Its answer, Ivan writes, raises more questions than it settles — and he was the complainant in one of the inquiries it describes.
Ivan sets out the tasks facing the new UNF government: humility in power, exemplary leadership, efficiency and, above all, restoring the rule of law. He urges an end to politicians' immunity from traffic law and to fake number plates, noting their use in the Kandy killings and by presidential security,
Given how far the country has fallen, getting back to normal is not easy. People must understand that recovery will be gradual, and the government must at the same time give them a sense of hope. This is Ivan's list of what the new government should clean up first.
The editorial condemns post-election reprisals in areas such as Anamaduwa, Pathadumbara, Nawalapitiya and Hiriyala, where PA figures had behaved like local warlords with police and presidential backing. It says the paper had long warned that such violence would provoke a backlash, and calls on the new government both to stop
Ivan reads Chandrika Kumaratunga's handover of domestic power to the UNF as a tactical retreat by a cobra biding its time, since she keeps executive power, command of the forces, a large security force and the power to dissolve Parliament. Because she installed a loyal Chief Justice who could nullify
During the campaign the President boasted of her wide powers, and after the United National Front won she did not pick a fight with the winner by flourishing them. She has handed over internal administration and remains chief executive, commander-in-chief, and the holder of a private army of thousands.
The editorial urges the new government to make a negotiated settlement its priority. It notes that Prabhakaran's Heroes' Day speech stopped short of demanding a separate state, argues that both sides have reached the limits of military action, and proposes first agreeing on principles acceptable to Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims,
After the People's Alliance defeat, Ivan weighs the options facing Chandrika Kumaratunga, who still holds executive power. Contrasting American practice and French cohabitation under Mitterrand and Chirac with Sri Lanka's short 1994 experience, he sees three paths: resignation, a Wijetunga-style nominal presidency, or removal by the new majority through budget
Voters defeated the People's Alliance despite a violent campaign in which, the editorial says, the President and cabinet broke election law and the Constitution with the Chief Justice's backing. It singles out the former deputy defence minister, whose paramilitaries it blames for intimidation in Kandy and the shooting of ten
Using and misusing state resources to the utmost, a desperate PA played even its last trump card, the Tiger card, and the people disregarded all of it and defeated the government with the power of their innocent vote. What the President can still do, and what should be done to
Ivan questions Somawansa Amarasinghe's fitness to lead the JVP. He recounts Amarasinghe's arrest in the botched 1971 plan to seize Sirimavo Bandaranaike and his switch from anti- to pro-Wijeweera views in prison, and cites Vas Tillekeratne's statement on Iraqi funding. He asks how Amarasinghe alone escaped in 1989, possibly helped
The editorial calls the election decisive for democracy, accusing the People's Alliance of rigging every poll since 1994, ignoring the 17th Amendment, threatening the Elections Commissioner and hinting it would block an opposition government. As voters punished the UNP in 1994, it says, they must now punish the PA and
Ahead of the December 2001 election, the piece examines how the departure of the Muslim Congress, the Ceylon Workers' Congress and the NUA costs the People's Alliance about 15 seats. It works through the 2000 district results to show how bonus seats, the 5 per cent cut-off and remainders gave
Two tables: the share of the vote won by parties that took power from an incumbent at a parliamentary election, and the share won by incumbents who were returned. From those rates the column projects the result of the election a week away.
Ivan shows that since 1952 opposition parties winning power have gained on average about 18 per cent in vote share, while re-elected governments have lost ground. Applying this pattern, together with the departure of the Muslim Congress and the Ceylon Workers' Congress from the PA, he estimates that the United
Ivan considers cohabitation between a PA President and a UNP Parliament. He recalls how President Wijetunga cooperated with Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994, quotes N.M. Perera's 1978 warnings that a hostile Parliament could paralyse a president through its control of finance, and argues that a PA defeat would amount to a
Anura Bandaranaike said that even if the United National Front won, his sister would not let it form a government but would keep proroguing and dissolving Parliament. The editorial replies that Sri Lanka is not a Bandaranaike feudal estate, that sovereignty lies with the people, and that voters also decide
