ඡන්ද බලය හා පරමාධිපත්ය බලය
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 commissioner keep his back straight.
මඩ ගහගන්නවා වෙනුවට අවශ්ය වී ඇත්තේ අර්ථවත් සංවාදයකි
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, both camps owe the country an account of how they would beat it.
ජෙනරාල්ගේ ආරක්ෂාව
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 — and then turns the numbers round to ask what a cabinet of more than a hundred is costing the army in men.
ආරක්ෂක සම්බාධක ලිහිල් කිරීමේ අවශ්යතාව
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 the journalists who left the country for their safety to be invited back.
වැඩවර්ජනවල සාධාරණත්වය!
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 for the coming election, and asks why parties confident of winning in January will not simply wait and settle the wage claims themselves.
විපක්ෂයේ නව සන්ධානය හා විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්රමය අහෝසි කිරීම
The new opposition alliance has published ten principles with the abolition of the executive presidency at the head of them. Ivan welcomes an opposition able to work together and argues that the accusations the two sides trade — lawlessness, corruption, waste, public property taken as spoils — are all products of the same system, so the question worth arguing is what should replace it.
දෙමළ සන්ධානයේ නව අස්ථානය
With the LTTE gone, the Tamil National Alliance is becoming again the main vehicle of Tamil political hopes — and, most importantly, has set aside the demand for Eelam as unrealistic, accepting a unitary state within which a lasting settlement is to be sought with Sinhalese support. Ivan writes that hatred and separatist feeling are not found only between communities but between castes, religions and parties too.
ජීඑස්පී ප්ලස් බදු සහනය ආරක්ෂා කරගත යුතුය
Whether Sri Lanka keeps GSP+ is a measure of its diplomatic sense, Ivan writes: a member of an organisation is bound by the rules it agreed to or should leave. He points out that nothing done during the war is what is at issue, and that releasing the displaced, withdrawing the Yaksihiran indictment, pardoning Tissainayagam and passing a short law making the covenants domestically enforceable would settle it.
දකුණේ මැතිවරණ ප්රතිඵලය දෙස බැලීමක්
The government won the south well but less well than it had announced it would, which cheapened the win. Ivan reads the numbers as showing the president’s standing still strong, and argues that what the government must now protect is what the country is already receiving: settle the quarrels with the West, send home everyone in the camps except the LTTE’s active supporters, and let foreign aid flow.
පළිගැනීම
An opposition member of parliament whose house and office were burned says the police will not arrest anyone, and has taken to smashing coconuts at shrines instead. Ivan follows the wheel through the UNP’s seventeen years and the years after 1994, when each side in turn played avenger and victim, and asks when the country will be free of this politics.