අල්ලස් කොමිසම ඉදිරියේ දහසක් මල් පිපීම
Government and opposition are now filing rival corruption complaints with the Bribery Commission, which the editorial sees as a chance to force it to look at the top of the power pyramid. It urges commissioners to publish their own asset declarations, to treat the editorial itself as a complaint and call for the declarations of everyone from the President down, to act on the Auditor General’s findings, and to start with the President’s Rs 2,400 million vehicle purchases against a Rs 63 million allocation.
නයි පොළගුන් සමග සෙල්ලමට යාම
Ivan likens Ranil Wickremesinghe to a snake charmer handling cobras whose fangs he has not drawn: pursuing the President and her associates slowly through inquiries while they still hold key posts. Further sections note that the committee under retired judge Ranjith Dheerasekera on local election malpractice has been starved of resources, mock the President’s reported threat to bite the Prime Minister’s neck, and warn that the honeymoon is ending, citing Harry Jayawardena’s appointment to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
අල්ලස් හා දූෂණය
Ivan explains the 1994 laws that created the Bribery Commission and the offence of corruption, and why they failed: the President appointed commissioners freely and was excluded from the definition of public servant, as the 48 security vehicles bought in 2000, 13 missing, show. He criticises the Commission’s handling of the Channel 9, Mangala Samaraweera credit-card and misuse-of-state-resources complaints, its reference to the 1975 rather than the amended 1988 assets law, and proposes reforms.
මනා මූල්ය පාලනයක් සඳහා අවශ්ය කොන්දේසි
The editorial says no plan has yet emerged to rescue a country bankrupted by mismanagement and corruption. It proposes caps on the price and minimum service life of state vehicles, noting the President alone spent Rs 2,400 million in a year with 13 vehicles missing; full enforcement of the assets and liabilities law with cheap public access; an end to unofficial funds in state bodies; limits on officials’ multiple directorship fees; and revision of a 1980 rule letting senior officers keep state cars for Rs 150 a month.
මාධ්ය නිදහස ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදය
Taking up Lasantha Wickrematunge’s criticism of editors for hiding wrongdoing by the powerful, Ivan welcomes the repeal of criminal defamation and planned media reforms but says freedom means little without responsibility. He recounts how most papers protected magistrate Lenin Ratnayake and Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, and faults the Editors’ Guild for silence on the Leader ban, the President’s claim that a minister plotted to kill two editors, and the layered cover-up of attacks on journalists under the last government.
කැකිල්ලේ ක්රමය
Ivan says the Chief Justice heard Karu Jayasuriya’s petition over biased state broadcasting despite Mary Robinson’s advice that he stand aside, then delayed it until after the election, likening this to the fabled King Kekille’s justice. Other sections mock the President’s claim of humane rule, criticise a JVP no-confidence motion against the Western Province opposition organiser, ask why the air force commander alone faces firm action, and note police corruption admitted by H.M.G.B. Kotakadeniya, urging use of the assets law.
මජරකමද? වැඩවසම් උද්ධච්ඡකමද?
The dispute over luxury bullet-proof vehicles bought under the People’s Alliance, some now missing, shows how selfishly the country has been run. The editorial lists the purchases for the President’s security from 1999 to 2000, costing Rs 1,110 million for cars and perhaps Rs 3,000 million with helicopters, and contrasts this with UNP leaders who faced worse threats without such spending and with meagre budgets for agriculture, labour and irrigation.
සාපරාධී අපහාස නීතිය හා විමල් වීරවංශ
Parliament repealed criminal defamation unanimously, though some PA and JVP members clearly opposed it. Replying to Wimal Weerawansa’s attack on Ravaya during the debate, the editorial says Ravaya lost faith in Chandrika Kumaratunga long ago, alleges that Mangala Samaraweera arranged a Press Council ruling for the JVP through its chairman Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, and challenges Weerawansa to answer questions on killings and assaults, the Malimbada shooting and corruption allegations against the President.
චන්ද්රිකාගේ ගැටලු ජයගන්නට රනිල්ට හැකි ද?
Ivan notes that President Kumaratunga still controls ambassadors, provincial governors, who would head any interim administration, and the power to dissolve Parliament after a year. Curbing these needs a two-thirds majority, and her strategy is to deny the government PA votes unless investigations into crimes of her era, which could threaten her and the Bandaranaike name, are dropped. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s political future, he says, depends on how he handles this.
තකට තකතකට තක
Ivan argues that under Sarath N. Silva the judiciary became an object of public disgust. Appointed by Kumaratunga while facing charges, he purged judicial officers who would not bend, as the International Bar Association mission noted, and now seeks to reinstate a magistrate found guilty of rape and fraud. He suppressed cases against the PSD and approved the PA’s pre-2000 electoral law, and Ivan warns that disputes under any settlement with the LTTE would go to a Supreme Court headed by such a man.