What may happen?
The winner has the cake and it is not edible. Victor Ivan describes a government that has taken enormous power at exactly the moment power stops being worth having.
Loveable 19th and fearsome 20th
Everyone is defending the 19th Amendment against the 20th. Victor Ivan argues the country was already in the dark under the 19th, and that those who cannot see that will not understand what the 20th does.
Ignoring the crisis
A throne speech that never mentions the crisis. Victor Ivan sets the President’s words against the World Bank’s forecasts, the collapse of state revenue and the half-million jobs about to be lost in the Gulf.
The dilemma of the victory
A two-thirds majority and no idea what to do with it. Victor Ivan reads the 2020 landslide as a dilemma for the winners — and reserves his sharpest analysis for what became of the UNP and the JVP.
The post-election saga
Whatever the election returns, Victor Ivan expects deadlock — a shrinking economy, half a million jobs lost abroad, and three underlying failures that no majority can vote away.
Criminalisation of politics
India counts the criminal cases against its MPs; Sri Lanka does not count at all. Victor Ivan sets the two countries’ records side by side and asks why no one here has thought the question worth asking.
Seducing the Parliament
How Parliament was bought: Victor Ivan traces the estates, contracts and licences J.R. Jayewardene handed his MPs, and asks whether the new House will break the silence its predecessors kept.
Parliamentary Polls and the two centres of power
Two centres of power inside one ruling family, an election held under the shadow of a second COVID wave, and a Supreme Court that let MPs cross the floor without losing their seats.
Setting governance on a firm footing
What the three branches of the state are supposed to do, and what Sri Lanka’s actually do. Victor Ivan’s answer is to hand the constitution to the people, with citizens’ initiatives and referendums built into it.
Recreation of the State
The promised remedy: Victor Ivan’s blueprint for rebuilding the state — a judiciary with the power of judicial review, a reformed legislature and executive, and an end to the plunder of public property.