A wake up call to main opposition
The opposition transacts with this government the way a serf transacts with his feudal lord. The serf’s manner before his master is timid: he could not protest even when his wife or his daughter was taken. Timid talk about four commissions will not revive a decaying democracy.
එජාප බැරී බැරී රෝගයට පිළියමක් සොයාගත යුතුය
Ivan likens the UNP’s dealings with the People’s Alliance government to a hereditary serf’s timidity before his lord. Though the Elections Commissioner, religious leaders, PAFFREL, the election-violence monitors and EU observers found the October 2000 poll unfair, the UNP chose to ‘let bygones be bygones’ and filed half-hearted petitions. He recalls, from Prins Gunasekera’s book, how Sirimavo Bandaranaike withdrew as petitioner against the 1982 referendum, leaving Rohana Wijeweera to file, and asks why the UNP stayed silent on Sarath N. Silva’s appointment and on the 1999 presidential poll.
කඩුවේ අභියෝග ජයගැනීම
Ivan argues that S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s Sinhala Only policy, by confining youth to Sinhala, fed the two southern insurrections led by Wijeweera and the Tamil separatist struggle under Prabhakaran, whereas Indian leaders kept English for higher education. He welcomes compulsory English at A-level but calls English-medium science in 560 schools from 2001 reckless, given teacher shortages and a 64% O-level English failure rate in 1995. He proposes model schools and a state-funded eight-month English and computer course for the 35,000 annual A-level passes, run through international schools.
Reforms should precede consensus politics
The TULF is uneasy about the proposed PA-UNP understanding, because it is limited to an agenda for democracy and contains nothing about the ethnic crisis. If Tamil people and Tamil parties think a solution to that comes before everything else, that is entirely understandable.
දේශපාලන සංස්කෘතිය ගෞරවනීය තැනකට ගෙන ඒම පළමුවෙන්ම සිදුවිය යුතුය
The TULF objects that the PA–UNP consensus agenda covers democracy but not the ethnic question. Ivan agrees a settlement is vital but says it needs cross-party consensus, impossible while ruling parties use state power against rivals: the UNP stripped the SLFP leader’s civic rights and banned the JVP, and the PA humiliated and split the UNP and harassed the JVP. He calls for a level field, beginning with a judiciary freed from the executive and a new Chief Justice, laws against persecuting opponents, and the disarming of armed parties.
රාජසන කතාව හා ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදය
The editorial says the President’s throne speech covered much but ignored the real problems of democracy. It cites the Elections Commissioner, PAFFREL’s finding of gross malpractice in 22 electorates, the election-violence monitors’ call to annul 17 results and EU observers’ ratings of polling stations, against her claim to have revived democracy since 1994. Consensus against Prabhakaran’s terrorism, it argues, requires first ending the state terror and electoral fraud of every ruling party since 1977, and the opposition must take up a practical reform programme.
රට යමින් තිබෙන්නේ ම්ලේච්ඡත්වයටද
Ivan says the killing of Tamil detainees at a rehabilitation camp near Bandarawela presents a savage image to the country and the world, since the state is responsible for those in its custody. Recalling the two Welikada prison massacres of 1983, he notes that in a Western country the whole government would resign, warns that answering Prabhakaran’s brutality with equal brutality invites a new cycle of violence, and calls for an impartial inquiry and prosecution of those responsible.
පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ගෞරවය ස්ථාපිත කිරිමෙහිලා නව කථානායකවරයා ඉදිරියේ ඇති අභියෝග
Anura Bandaranaike, an opposition member, has been elected Speaker with government support as Parliament declines. Ivan urges him to have ballot rigging at the last election investigated by a select committee or commission and the guilty expelled, to champion an Indian-style election commission, and to introduce a code of conduct for members. He should enforce the assets and liabilities law and make declarations cheaply available, open Parliament and its committees to electronic media, and bring funds such as the President’s Fund and Samurdhi under the Auditor General.
සිදු වූ මැතිවරණ දූෂණ ඉදිරියේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව නිහඬ නොවිය යුතුයි
Although the President pledged to give no posts to anyone involved in electoral fraud or violence, many leading offenders have been rewarded with cabinet posts. The editorial argues that future fraud can be prevented only by punishing past offences, criticises the opposition for staying silent about the organised rigging of the last election, and proposes a parliamentary commission of inquiry to expel the ‘rotten eggs’ so that their dishonour is not shared by every member.
In the name of the democracy, please
The executive presidency split the state power that had been concentrated in parliament, and a large part of it now sits with a directly elected president. Parliament is nonetheless still the country’s supreme political institution — and this is an argument addressed to its new Speaker.