තෝරාගත් පිරිසකට පමණක් පඩි වැඩි කරන ප්රතිපත්තිය කුමක් ද?
The government promised all public servants a 70 per cent pay rise but has raised only the salaries of appellate and Supreme Court judges, on the ground of an anomaly with High Court judges. The editorial also asks how arrears for lower-court judges were paid without Parliament approving a supplementary estimate.
Government in a Stalemate
Victor Ivan traces the trap the UPFA government has built for itself. Resuming peace talks would solve both its problems at once — the TNA would support it at least from outside, curing the parliamentary shortfall, and the international aid package would ease the economic squeeze. But the JVP promised the country it would block the interim proposals and shut out Norway, and Ivan concedes their refusal is consistent even if wrong. The SLFP, having called the peace programme a treacherous plan to hand the LTTE a separate state, cannot now embrace it either; nor can the President drop the JVP for the UNP, which holds more seats than her own party and could bring down any government it supported from outside. Even the constitutional change for which she dissolved parliament has lost its constituency. Unable to move, the government buys public opinion with concessions the economy cannot fund, driving inflation and interest rates up on Treasury Bill issues and the rupee down. Ivan closes on Norway’s Vidar Helgesen, who likened the war to a frozen iceberg now melting as the talks collapse.
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.
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.
රනිල් වික්රමසිංහට වැරදුණේ කොතැන ද?
The President’s takeover of three ministries and dissolution of Parliament were undemocratic and arbitrary, but Ranil Wickremesinghe’s handling of the crisis was not strong either. Ivan weighs the Prime Minister’s record, including his peace initiative, and asks whether he will now fight the system itself or simply try to oust her.
රට යන්නේ විනාශයටය
The President wants to avoid political irrelevance at any price; the Prime Minister wants to keep the executive presidency so that he can inherit it. The editorial warns that this power struggle could end in anarchy and in the LTTE gaining freedom to act without a negotiated settlement.
සන්ධානය කොයිබට ද?
The JVP–SLFP alliance, formed after the President took over three ministries, has not inspired the public. The editorial finds mistrust built into the pact, notes that the JVP’s clean personal habits are shared by the LTTE and prove nothing about respect for life, and argues that an immediate dissolution and election would at least have forced the partners to work together.