Redeeming the country
With the military unable to turn the wheels either, Victor Ivan calls for a common platform across the parties — and, failing that, for the Opposition to build one itself.
Halting the use of chemical fertiliser
The overnight fertiliser ban. Victor Ivan sets the President’s organic dream against the history of paddy cultivation and the chemistry of soil, and warns of the harvest that will follow.
Perfecting the failure
Anarchy, bankruptcy, a misread geopolitics and a Geneva resolution. Victor Ivan reads the failure of the state as something now being completed rather than merely risked.
The end of an era of extremism
From the Mahavamsa to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Victor Ivan follows one line of thought through Sri Lankan history and argues that the era it produced is now, at last, ending.
The right thing to do
A president with no political education, an opposition Victor Ivan calls stupid, and a civil service filling up with soldiers. The column ends with a programme of reforms to be completed before any further election.
Perfecting the failure
Gotabaya is failing, Victor Ivan writes, but so is the state he inherited. The column ends on the case of Shani Abeysekera and what happens to a country when its courts stop administering justice.
Ignoring the crisis
A throne speech that never mentions the crisis. Victor Ivan sets the President’s words against the World Bank’s forecasts, the collapse of state revenue and the half-million jobs about to be lost in the Gulf.
Parliamentary Polls and the two centres of power
Two centres of power inside one ruling family, an election held under the shadow of a second COVID wave, and a Supreme Court that let MPs cross the floor without losing their seats.
The role of journalism
Asked why he proposed closing Ravaya, Victor Ivan answers with an account of what the paper was for — the battle against Sarath Nanda Silva, the criminal defamation law, and the case he took to the United Nations.
Stark darkness
The voters believed they were electing a strongman who would rescue them. Victor Ivan describes a country sliding into a bottomless pit while neither its navigators nor its passengers can see what is ahead.