නැති අවුල් ඇති කිරීම
Rulers who ignore the basic law are a lasting source of Sri Lanka’s political confusion, from the United Front’s new constitution of 1972 to the UNP’s in 1978. Ivan shows that everyone, the Chief Justice included, once accepted that the President’s second term began on 22 December 1999, as the transitional provisions of the 2000 draft constitution confirm, and argues that the election should be held this year.
ජවිපෙ මල්ලිලා හා අගවිනිසුරු
The Chief Justice took up the JVP’s and the Hela Urumaya’s fundamental rights petitions against the tsunami management structure filed on 5 July. A second note, ‘S.B. cries for freedom’, finds S.B. Dissanayake in the Merchant ward expecting release at any moment and blaming Bribery Commission Director-General Piyasena Ranasinghe for his troubles.
ජවිපෙ මන්ත්රීකම් අහිමි කිරීම
Three notes. The President has asked her lawyers whether JVP MPs can be unseated for breaching alliance discipline, though the government, with JVP support, has used the Chief Justice to protect MPs who crossed to it; whispers of a third impeachment motion against the Chief Justice; and a bouquet for Seylan Bank’s decision to help tsunami-hit businesses inside the 100-metre zone.
අර්බුදය ගමන් ගනිමින් තිබෙන්නේ කොතැනටද?
For all her mistakes, Ivan argues, Chandrika Kumaratunga may enter history as the leader who finally stood up to the Sinhala racist and religious extremists that every leader before her, her father included, obeyed. He then weighs her options as her term runs out: retirement, dissolution with the risk of impeachment, or giving up the presidency to keep the party and the opposition leadership, and what each would mean for Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe.
පළමු වටයේ ජය ජනාධිපතිනියට
The President has cleared a hard hurdle. Allying with the JVP let her defeat the UNP ‘army’ that had surrounded her, but left her a prisoner of the JVP; with the JVP gone she now has two paths, and the editorial argues that a parliamentary election would hurt the JVP and the Hela Urumaya most.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය
Must the next presidential election be held at the end of this year, as Ranil Wickremesinghe says, or next year, as the President says? The dispute arises from her two swearings-in, publicly in 1999 and secretly in 2000. The editorial traces the tangle to the Chief Justice and notes that the Elections Commissioner who must resolve it is past retirement age and in poor health.
සංඝ ආඥාව – සුන්දර
The Sunday Lakbima’s front page announced that a Sangha decree would expel the President from Buddhism, and its editor-in-chief Sundara Nihathamani de Mel had to answer for it. Ivan compares Gandhi’s model of satyagraha with the Sri Lankan version, and weighs a ruler’s right to decide against the need to win public consent for agreements such as the ceasefire.
චම්පිකගේ උගුලට ජවිපෙ අසුවෙයි
The JVP could no longer stay in the alliance because of a public statement based on a wrong calculation, made while competing at once with the SLFP and the Hela Urumaya. The piece follows the monks’ fast against the joint mechanism, the Treasury Secretary’s role, and the President’s meeting with Muslim MPs.
කපුවා කපෝති ද?
Three notes. Mangala Samaraweera, who brought the President and the JVP together and taught the JVP that it could capture the SLFP after Chandrika, now faces the collapse of his work; the Hela Urumaya’s crocodile tears for Major Muthaliff; and the Lankadeepa editor Siri Ranasinghe’s apology to the Supreme Court over the UNP statement.
ජවිපෙ සුභ සිහිනය
The JVP’s dream of power was really one Mangala Samaraweera built for it, with a crown for himself in the interval after the President. Now the joint mechanism leaves the party a choice between looking foolish in government and leaving it; Ivan points to India, with a Sikh prime minister and a Muslim president, as proof that ethnic divisions can be overcome.