Sri Lanka needs urgent surgery!
Sri Lanka needs emergency surgery, not an election, Victor Ivan writes — and he is careful to say what he means by surgery, what diagnosis must come first, and what the next president will actually be able to do.
Crisis of the Constitution
The 19th Amendment stripped the president of executive power but left him elected as though he still held it. Victor Ivan calls the result a country without a working constitution — and warns against going to the polls before fixing it.
Investigating corruption of the Yahapalana Government
The Yahapalana government’s flagship anti-corruption inquiry was chaired, Victor Ivan notes, by a former Chief Justice whose own record he sets out at length. A column about who is trusted to investigate whom.
The present crisis is likely to end up in a serious disaster
Sirisena has sacked one Prime Minister, sworn in another and moved to dissolve Parliament using powers the 19th Amendment took away from him. Victor Ivan argues the courts alone cannot arrest what follows.
චෞර රැජින පොත කරළියට ගැනීම
When Chandrika Kumaratunga returned to politics to back Maithripala Sirisena, the state-owned Lake House papers began serialising, without Ivan’s permission, his book Chaura Rajina (‘The Queen of Deceit’), written against her. Ivan compares the two presidents, arguing that Mahinda did more harm than Chandrika. He reveals that he refused Mahinda Rajapaksa’s expectation that he would help against Kumaratunga, and a direct request from the President, by telephone, for help in the case against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, and concludes that no social struggle is entirely pure.
ජනාධිපතිවරණයේ උරගා බැලීම්
Ivan names the institutions the January 2015 election will test. The judiciary has already bent, approving a third term. The state media have been turned into campaign tools, with attacks on Maithripala Sirisena’s rallies such as at Polonnaruwa. The Commissioner of Elections faces abuses such as in the Polpithigama division, while the Presidential Elections Act of 1981 clearly defines bribery. Finally he warns about any role for the security forces in the campaign.
මෛත්රීපාලගේ භූමිකාව
Using a chess metaphor, Ivan describes Maithripala Sirisena’s defection from the government to become the common opposition candidate as a move the Rajapaksa camp never expected. He assesses the MPs who crossed with him and the split in the SLFP, the roles of Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe in the anti-Mahinda alliance, and the JVP’s stance. He urges the challengers to avoid lies and communal appeals, credits Mahinda Rajapaksa with defeating Prabhakaran, but argues that his rule has done great harm, including its pro-China policy.
සෝභිත හිමිගේ පැතුම
Unable to attend Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero’s 70th birthday, Ivan honours him as one of the few learned people who never stayed silent in the face of wrongdoing. He recalls telling two vice-chancellors, G.L. Peiris and Arjuna Aluwihare, after the second JVP revolt that intellectuals’ silence was the cause of youth rebellion. Sobitha Thero called for abolishing the executive presidency and changing the electoral system in his lifetime, and Ivan notes a growing chorus — Maithripala Sirisena, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, government MPs, the Communist Party, the JHU — for change. He contrasts the old Westminster system, with by-elections, constituency MPs, spending limits and a Prime Minister in Parliament, with the executive presidency, which concentrates power in one person above the law and turns governance into a system of plunder.
කවුරු දිනුවත් ජනාධිපති ක්රමය අහෝසි වන ඡන්දයක්
Ivan describes S.B. Dissanayake as the man now steering the People’s Alliance, whose hints foretold the dropping of Lakshman Jayakody and possibly Richard Pathirana, and who shaped the national list. He recounts the sidelining of Dharmasiri Senanayake, S.B.’s ambitions for the media ministry and premiership, and alarm within the alliance at a drift towards junta rule. With no clear winner likely, any government will need small parties such as the JVP and may have to agree to abolish the presidency.