මරුවා සමග වාසේ
Ivan mocks the daily broadcasting of the inauspicious direction and the superstition peddled by television and even the JVP-backed paper Lanka. He turns the President’s lecture on the decline of politicians against her, tracing how every president since J.R. Jayewardene, including Premadasa, Wijetunga and Kumaratunga herself, used office for money or power, and attacks the costly upkeep of former presidents, now to be extended to former Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake.
ජනාධිපති අගමැති ගැටුම කෙළවර කුමක් ද?
Tracing the Development Lottery Board dispute back to the 1978 Constitution, Ivan quotes N.M. Perera’s warning that split control of presidency and Parliament would paralyse the state and invite dictatorship. He recalls Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake turning against the executive presidency, the PA’s 1994 pledge to abolish it, D.B. Wijetunga’s peaceful handover of domestic power, and Kumaratunga’s broken promise to the JVP. Wickremesinghe, a defender of the office he hopes to hold, failed to strike a deal at the height of his mandate and now faces a dilemma.
මුට්ටියට පෙර හොරා යැවීම
Ivan describes Mangala Samaraweera’s push for the President to seize power quickly, possibly driven by a pending case over an attack on poster-pasting youths during the last election, and reads her takeover of the Development Lottery Board as a test of the Prime Minister. He warns that a clash between presidential and parliamentary power could turn bloody, and urges a French-style cohabitation in which the President leaves domestic government to the majority, while faulting the JVP, PA and UNP for opportunism over the 1978 Constitution and the independent commissions.
ජනාධිපතිනිය යන්නේ කොයිබටද?
The President’s reply to the Prime Minister signals that she will ignore her opponents’ mandate and may reshape the Development Lottery Board or even the Cabinet at will. The editorial rejects the government’s rowdy resistance but also her claim that the President’s Fund was endangered, noting she diverted Mahapola scholarship money to it, and contrasts her with Mitterrand and D.B. Wijetunga, who ceded domestic power under cohabitation. It blames the government’s own inaction, including leaving the Chief Justice in place.
සාම කතාවල අනාගතය
With the talks stalled but likely to resume, the editorial calls the ‘carrot’ approach, peace for aid, the weakest element of the process: peace is needed because relations between communities have been uncivilised. It argues that a settlement must address wider democratic problems, since anti-democratic conduct is not confined to Prabhakaran, citing the PA’s Wayamba poll and J.R. Jayewardene’s 1982 election, and must reach the grassroots and win UNP–PA agreement.
අභ්යන්තර තුවාල හඳුනාගැනීම
Writing after a workshop in Austria led by conflict-resolution scholar Johan Galtung, Ivan takes up Galtung’s point that history and myth feed Sri Lanka’s conflict. Drawing on B.H. Farmer’s ‘Ceylon: A Divided Nation’, he traces how the Mahavamsa’s stories of Vijaya, Mahinda and Dutugemunu shaped a Sinhala sense of special origin and of the Tamil as historic enemy, a potential tapped from Dharmapala and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike to the JVP, and argues that these inner wounds must be treated along with the outer ones.
රනිල්ට වැරදුණේ කොතැන ද?
After the Supreme Court blocked the 19th Amendment strategy, Ivan assesses Ranil Wickremesinghe’s leadership. He compares the goals and power bases of J.R. Jayewardene, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe, and argues that the Prime Minister missed the chance, just after his election victory, to use his mandate to force the President into constitutional reform. He praises his resolve on peace but faults his reliance on personal friends rather than the cabinet and his failure to explain his goals.
ඔලුවෙන් සිටුවා ඇති ස්වාධීන කොමිෂන්
Ivan argues that the government’s proposed 18th Amendment, shielding the Constitutional Council from fundamental-rights suits, ignores the real flaw in the 17th: Jayampathy Wickramaratne’s redraft for the President left her the power to nominate holders of key posts. He recounts the civil-society origins of the reform and the JVP and UNP roles in its passage, notes Priyani Wijesekera as its first victim, and proposes public vetting of Council members, barring them from legal practice and letting the Council investigate complaints against senior judges.
ජේ.ආර්. ගේ “ගෝල්ඩ් රොලෙක්ස්” චන්ද්රිකාගේ පතේ පිලිප්ස්”
Ivan recalls an acquaintance who contrasted J.R. Jayewardene’s showy gold Rolex with the far costlier Patek Philippe worn by Chandrika Kumaratunga, and traces the Bandaranaike family’s modest finances from the Maha Mudaliyar to the 1956 election loans. He describes a phone call in which the President spoke of the watch, a gift she planned to auction, and his article leading her to hand gifts to the Treasury. He then recounts his failed efforts to obtain ministers’ and the President’s asset declarations.
ව්යවස්ථාව සමග වළ කජු ගැසීම
Ivan traces how politicians have toyed with the constitution: the authoritarian features of J.R. Jayewardene’s 1978 charter, rushed through as urgent; Chandrika Kumaratunga’s broken promise to abolish the executive presidency and her transitional clauses keeping her in power; the 2000 attempt to pass a new constitution by buying UNP votes; and the distortion of the 17th Amendment by Jayampathy Wickramaratne. He notes the Speaker signed the wrong draft, leaving commissions in legal limbo, and argues the proposed 19th Amendment is too narrow.