The presidency and the dilemma of the Presidential Election
J.R. Jayewardene built the presidency to make himself a king; the 19th Amendment hollowed it out but left the crown on. Victor Ivan reads the 2019 field — Gotabaya, the UNP’s impasse, the JVP — against that comedy.
Failure of the Left Movement
From the Old Left’s Marxist head on a liberal trunk to the JVP after two insurrections, Victor Ivan asks why the Left has failed — and what the JVP should do with the presidential election in front of it.
Referring the matter to the Supreme Court
The full text of the public appeal to the Supreme Court on MPs who transact business with the state, signed by Victor Ivan and some sixty writers, academics, journalists, lawyers and trade unionists.
What is happening?
The patient needs surgery and the doctors are discussing the election. Victor Ivan sets out what the next president will and will not be able to do, and why the contest itself is in crisis.
Fox and the poultry pen
The state owns the land, the sea, the rivers and the air — and its custodians have been helping themselves. Victor Ivan traces the licences, the leases and the presidential foundations, and asks the Supreme Court to act.
The messed-up lives
Why are people who have everything still unhappy? Victor Ivan writes about death, parental care, superstition taught as education, and what Einstein and Freud had to say to each other about it.
Honesty and sincerity
Falsehood has become an operating principle, Victor Ivan writes — in what is sold as kithul treacle, in what tourists are offered, in what schools certify, and in what professionals are licensed to do without ever being re-examined.
Acquiring the desired change
Readers keep asking Victor Ivan how change is actually to be won. His answer: turn the presidential election into a referendum on the system itself, and civilise a media culture that lives off public frequencies.
Kitchen and the State
Victor Ivan argues that what Sri Lankans eat and how they cook it is a political question — bound up with rural poverty, wasted harvests, crop damage by wild animals, and prohibitions inherited from Anagarika Dharmapala.
Laundering the Parliament
Victor Ivan publishes his correspondence with the Speaker of Parliament on MPs who do business with the state — the request, the reply, and his answer to it.