රාජ්ය නිලධරතන්ත්රය
Politicians come and go but officials stay, Ivan argues, and a strong, law-bound bureaucracy is what has kept India’s democracy standing. Sri Lanka had one until the 1972 constitution weakened it and the 1978 constitution destroyed it. He traces the result through the forced resignation of Auditor General Wijesuriya, outsiders placed over the Elections Department, and Chief Justices chosen for loyalty from Wanasundera’s passing-over to Shirani Bandaranayake’s removal. Reviving the Seventeenth Amendment’s independent commissions is no cure, he says, because they had no power to punish a president who ignored them.
යහපත් දේශපාලන ක්රමයක් සඳහා සිහින දැකීමේ අවශ්යතාව
Writing during the 2012 provincial council elections, Ivan examines the electoral system created in 1978. Quoting Election Commissioner Chandananda de Silva’s report on the 1989 election, he argues that the system hands the party holding the presidency control of Parliament and the public service, and that open vote-buying and campaigns costing billions have turned elections into auctions. He recalls watching money flow to Chandrika Kumaratunga’s campaigns and Leslie Goonewardene’s refusal of foreign funds for his party, and warns that the country’s richest people have made their fortunes by funding politicians and now rule from behind the scenes.
භූමිය පමණක් නොව ජනතාවද එක්සේසත් කළ යුතුය
Had the margin been three thousand votes rather than a landslide, Ivan argues, supporters of the two camps would have turned on each other and the country would have run with blood. He traces how every Elections Commissioner has worked under duress: Jayasekera resigned after the 1981 Jaffna district council poll was taken over by the Defence Secretary, Chandananda de Silva could not publish his referendum report for five years, and in 2001 Chandrika Kumaratunga tried to arrest the Commissioner on Sarath Nanda Silva’s advice. The raid on Fonseka’s hotel after the result dulled the victory’s lustre. Ivan closes with eleven questions any constitutional reform must answer — on ethnic identity, rule of law, limits on presidential power, corruption, money in elections, party democracy and access to justice — and warns against repeating 1972 and 1977, when a governing party wrote a constitution alone.
17 වැනි සංශෝධනයට කොකා පෙන්නීම
Ivan explains that the 17th Amendment gives the Constitutional Council power over the independent commissions and top appointments, yet the President has still not named her nominee despite Article 41(5). He argues that she is protecting her hold over the Chief Justice, Attorney General, IGP and Bribery Commission, since a council would weaken her defence against impeachment and against the Padiyapelella rocket-launcher case linked to a plot to kill S.B. Dissanayake.
ආනමඩුවට තලගොයි පාලනය අවසන් වී කබරගොයි පාලනයක් ලැබීම
Ivan describes how in Anamaduwa the violent rule of PA strongman D.M. Dassanayake, known as ‘Thalagoya’, has been replaced after the election by that of the UNP’s Ranga Bandara, a former policeman, with nine killings, 250 injured and over 150 houses burned, while the police and the Prime Minister look away. A second section welcomes a Supreme Court ruling ordering IGP Lucky Kodituwakku and others to pay compensation personally over biased police promotions.