Person: D.B. Wijetunga

ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨත්වය පරිපූර්ණ කිරීම

Judging by the weapons taken and the infrastructure found, Ivan writes, another decade of
the LTTE would have been past imagining — and both the wars and the peace talks had
strengthened its de facto state rather than dissolving it. Mahinda Rajapaksa is therefore
the greatest of the country’s leaders since independence; but the greatness is not complete,
and completing it means opening every window to a national argument about what Sri Lanka
should now become.

රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහටත් ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය එපාවේ!

Ivan notes that if Ranil Wickremesinghe’s complaint is Mahinda Rajapaksa rather than the
system, then removing the man and preserving the machine is the wrong remedy — and that his
promise to abolish the executive presidency under a UNP government reads as a concession to
his party rather than a conviction. Some presidents built things within the corrupt system,
he grants; but what has hollowed out the rule of law is the system, not the individual.

කැරලිකරුවන් අභිබවා රනිල් ජයගැනීම

Ranil Wickremesinghe has now put down the third revolt against him, and Ivan explains why he
was always going to. The party constitution gives its leader the same absolute power
Sirimavo Bandaranaike used to survive seventeen years out of office — though it cost her the
premiership when the party finally won. The rebels had no agreed leader, and Ranil set
Sajith Premadasa’s name against S.B. Dissanayake’s until neither mattered. They should have
gone after the constitution, not the man.

එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ අර්බුදය

Ivan argues that the UNP’s decline is not Ranil Wickremesinghe’s doing but the working of
the system the party itself built: J.R. Jayewardene designed a machine that would not change
hands, and since 1994 it has kept his party out for fifteen years. Party constitutions
mirror the national one — the leader is above the document, as the president is — and the
party is caught in a trap of its own making.

ප්‍රතිවාදී නායකයන් අඟුටුමිට්ටන් බවට පත්වී ජනාධිපති යෝධයකු බවට පත්වීම

An analysis of the Sri Lankan political landscape following the 2009 provincial council elections. The article discusses how Mahinda Rajapaksa solidified his power, rendering opposition leaders like Ranil Wickremesinghe politically impotent and crippling the UNP and JVP. The author urges the President not to misuse this massive mandate like J.R. Jayewardene did, but instead use it to dismantle the corrupt political system, establish private universities, eradicate ethnic divisions, and build a truly democratic nation.

සෝමවංශ සේ ම වීරවංශ ද

The argument inside the JVP matters, Ivan writes, because until it began the party’s spokesmen described it as the cleanest in the country. He reads the sources — Nandana Gunathilaka’s series, Somawansa’s speech at the 1971 commemoration, Weerawansa’s answer in parliament — and works back through the party’s money to the years when its leaders needed intermediaries and protection.

හොංකොංවලින් උගත හැකි පාඩම් (1)

Hong Kong before 1974 was as rotten as Sri Lanka — a bribe was a condition of getting anything done, including calling the fire brigade. Today its police force is among the cleanest in the world. In the first of two parts Ivan sets out how corruption is structured here instead: what political power is worth, why business invests in politicians rather than in business, and what the country pays for it.

Defeating Mr. President All But Impossible

Despite corruption, rights abuses, nepotism and rising prices, Ivan argues that President Rajapaksa is almost impossible to unseat before the presidential election of 2011. The UNP can defeat the budget only with the JVP, which gains too much from the government to risk it, and the rules of the system favour the President over the opposition.