Voluntary March Towards Destruction
Victor Ivan argues that neither the UPFA nor the UNP read the 2004 election result correctly: the government took a near-tie as a mandate, the opposition as a victory, when both should have read it as a demand for consensus. Parliament has sat three times since the election, spending those days on abuse and fisticuffs while costing Rs 1.9 million a day whether it meets or not. The government advertises the repeal of the Tax Amnesty Act and the compensation formula though no amending bills have been tabled, and diverts youth brigade funds without the parliamentary approval such a transfer requires. Having roused the trade unions against its predecessor, it now cannot drive back the demon it summoned; having roused the country against the Norwegian-brokered talks, it now wants negotiations in an environment of its own poisoning. Ivan holds not only politicians but intellectuals, the private sector and society at large responsible for standing aside, and expects wisdom to arrive only after the fall.
The UPFA Government’s Future
Two months after the 2004 general election the UPFA still lacks 113 seats, and Victor Ivan sets out why it may never reach them. Thondaman’s CWC is gone, the TNA route is closed by the JVP’s line on the LTTE, and the crossover rule strips defecting MPs of their seats — except the JHU’s bhikkhu MPs, who contested without a party constitution and so cannot be disciplined, though poaching them would provoke the JHU into fury. Until the government proves its majority it can do nothing else, including the new constitution the President dissolved parliament to obtain, and only fourteen months remain before the presidential election. Ivan then turns to the economy, arguing the UNF lost because ordinary people saw no dividend from peace while the business community did, and warning that the end of the garment quota system in December threatens an industry supplying 60% of export income and up to 150,000 jobs at home and in the Middle East. The JVP, he concludes, has shown a clean lifestyle but not yet the maturity its mandate demands, and its fate may prove more tragic than the traditional left’s.
What Can Happen?
Reading the April 2004 election result, Victor Ivan opens with a fable of three fish: the green fish stripped of its dominance by a blue-and-red alliance, and the victors fused into one distorted creature, the red fish triumphant but immobilised by the half of the blue fish it cannot finish swallowing. Beneath the allegory he argues that a real change has begun — the system in which either main party’s turn in office amounted to an official permit to plunder public property may not survive the JVP’s new strength. But he judges the JVP’s positions on the economy and the ethnic question neither progressive nor practical: it accepts decentralisation while rejecting devolution, when only maximum devolution can settle the war, and its coercive route to constitutional change invites Prabhakaran to conclude that a minority may also impose its way. With the SLFP reduced to a dwarf and both leaders’ ambitions evaporating, Ivan proposes an all-party interim administration on an agreed reform programme.
What is going to happen?
Writing days before the April 2004 parliamentary election, Victor Ivan argues that no result can reduce the country’s instability. Two nationalist blocs have each split — the Jathika Hela Urumaya’s monks drawing away from the JVP’s claim to represent Sinhala nationalism, and Karuna’s break dividing the Tamil National Alliance between north and east. If no party reaches 105 seats, the balancing seats cannot come from the TNA, since courting Prabhakaran means fighting Karuna and courting Karuna means fighting Prabhakaran. Ivan sets out the manoeuvres open to Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe in each scenario, warns that a prolonged failure to form a government would weaken the economy and the rule of law and choke off international aid, and notes that Prabhakaran — who had watched the earlier crisis with amusement — is now as bogged down as the two leaders he was observing.
Two Aspects of Political Opportunism
In this article, Victor Ivan examines the mutual political opportunism and power struggle between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe leading up to the dissolution of parliament. Ivan argues that Kumaratunga’s political strategy—including formalizing a permanent alliance with the JVP, taking over key ministries, and shrewdly calculating her election and oath dates—was driven entirely by her desire to avoid political invalidation at the end of her second term. Conversely, Wickremesinghe’s passive strategy was to defend the existing system and allow the President to serve out her terms so that she would naturally be invalidated, clearing his path to the executive presidency. This calculation ultimately prevented him from actively challenging her controversial appointments to the judiciary and the elections commission, allowing her to consolidate power.
පක්ෂ තුනක ප්රජාතන්ත්ර විරෝධී භාවිතය
A country divided by party loyalty sees only good in its own side. Ivan examines the undemocratic record of the UNP, the SLFP and the JVP, from the 1982 referendum that extended Parliament’s life, which Sirimavo Bandaranaike opposed, to their handling of the independent commissions under the 17th Amendment.
විනාශය කරා යන රටක්
Neither main bloc looks able to win enough seats to govern alone. The editorial warns that a constitution shaped for one-man rule has bent every institution to it, leaving a country without wise leaders, an independent public service, an independent judiciary or a responsible press.
සෝම හිමියන්ගේ අපවත්වීම, ආගම් භේද හා ශ්රී ලංකාවේ ජාතිකත්ව ගැටලුව – 2
Ivan traces how the Sinhala people formed from many tribal groups, with Buddhism as the force that united them under one language and faith, how Tamil-speaking groups from South India settled alongside them, and how Muslim trading settlements grew from about the eighth century under tolerant Sinhala kings who also endowed Hindu temples.
මැතිවරණයෙන් කුමක් සිදුවේ ද?
An analysis of the April 2004 general election. Taking peace, the cost of living and corruption as the issues voters care about, Ivan works through the 2001 results district by district, adding PA and JVP votes together, to estimate whether the new alliance can beat the UNP and what that would mean for the North-East.
බලපොරයේ අවසානය කුමක් ද?
Voters face a third parliamentary election in four years, called not because Parliament’s term ended or the government lost its majority but because of a power struggle. The editorial argues that the conditions for a peaceful, civilised election could have been met first, and questions the practice of handing ministries across the party divide.