Earning a system change
The World Bank, the IMF and the EU all say the political crisis must be solved alongside the economic one. Victor Ivan says the opposition parties are the obstacle, and calls this a golden opportunity being wasted.
Whither ends the Sri Lankan crisis?
Even with an IMF package the hardest part is still ahead. Victor Ivan returns to the JVP’s second insurrection for what it shows about how a power struggle turns into a bloodbath.
Another aspect of the crisis
Corruption, not just monetary mismanagement, is what emptied the reserves. Victor Ivan follows the vehicle permits back to J.R. Jayewardene and the predatory system he built around them.
Prime cause of the crisis
On the 74th independence anniversary Victor Ivan finds the public discussion unusually advanced, then argues that Parliament itself is illegally constituted and points to the Jayewardene Centre as the founding example.
Judiciary and the crisis
How the spine of the judiciary was broken. Victor Ivan follows the line from the taming of Parliament through Neville Samarakoon to Sarath Silva, and asks what a court could still do in a crisis like this.
Indecency glorified
The land swap, the constitutional frauds, the things presidents do that no civilised country would tolerate. Victor Ivan catalogues indecency raised to the level of ordinary practice.
The crisis of not having mature leaders
Six opposition leaders, all of them products of the old order. Victor Ivan asks what a mature leader would look like and why the post-independence period has produced so few.
Dr. Neville Fernando and Lankan politics
A conversation from 1991 with Dr. Neville Fernando, recalled at his death, in which a government backbencher explained how Parliament was bought — and why, Victor Ivan argues, it has never recovered.
First, rescue Parliament, then the country
Johan Galtung once told Victor Ivan what Sri Lanka would become. Thirty years on the column takes that forecast as its starting point and argues the Parliament must be rescued before the country can be.
What went wrong with Ranil?
Known as the cleverest operator in Sri Lankan politics, Ranil Wickremesinghe ended up caught in someone else’s trap. Victor Ivan sets out what he thinks went wrong, and what it cost the country.