The Joint Mechanism and the Coming Political Crisis
Having promised the Kandy aid conference she would sign the joint mechanism for tsunami relief in the north-east regardless of extremist pressure, the President has been called. The JVP, under internal pressure that has made the issue one of survival and dignity, has resolved to quit the government if she signs. Victor Ivan sets out the arithmetic: the JVP’s departure costs 39 seats, the Hela Urumaya’s likely departure another nine, and the Tamil Alliance’s 22 do not cover the gap. Refusing to sign preserves the government but damages her standing internationally, in her party and among the people. Her alternatives are a coalition with a UNP leader who will not strengthen her hand, inducing a large group of UNP MPs to defect — for whom, Ivan notes, she could probably secure judicial protection through the Chief Justice — or dissolving parliament, possibly resigning the presidency and contesting as prime ministerial candidate herself. He judges a parliamentary election would hurt the JVP and Hela Urumaya most, and warns that whichever course she takes the turmoil will not end soon, still less if the LTTE abandons the ceasefire.
දේශපාලනය හා ධර්මය
Ranil Wickremesinghe’s 54-page booklet on politics and the Dhamma was launched with great ceremony. The note compares the thin record of books by Sri Lankan leaders, J.R. Jayewardene’s included, with India’s tradition from Gandhi onwards, and links that emptiness to the emptiness of the country’s politics.
වෙරළ ආරක්ෂක කලාපයේ යථාර්ථය
Ravaya criticised the 100/200-metre buffer zone from the start, because such a law would ruin the survivors. The piece shows how it breaches eleven basic principles of two international covenants, then examines the roles of the JVP, of Ranil Wickremesinghe and a stagnant UNP, and of a President whose strategy may cost her only the executive presidency.
දේශප්රේමී පෝස්ටර් හා දේශද්රෝහී පාප්ප
The JVP has the country’s best poster machine and spends more on posters than anyone. Ivan mocks its latest campaign, then turns to the question of who the alliance’s presidential candidate will be: the President will not give up her wish to avoid irrelevance, but in a close contest between Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe, Rajapaksa is more likely to win.
අනුරගේ අපහාසය
Contempt complaints are becoming fashionable: UNP MP Johnston Fernando has petitioned the Supreme Court over Anura Bandaranaike’s remarks on the S.B. Dissanayake case. The note points out that the UNP leader decries contempt prosecutions while his own MP files one.
අනුරගේ රස කතා
Anura Bandaranaike has changed his tune about succeeding his sister as the alliance’s presidential candidate. In sections on the constitutional amendment, Chandrika’s tricks, a Ranil who belongs to neither world, and a thunderbolt striking the temple of justice, Ivan argues that the state needs full reform, not reform to save one person from irrelevance, and above all an independent judiciary.
ප්රභාකරන්ට දෙන්නට උත්තරයක් තිබේ ද?
The LTTE leader’s Heroes’ Day speech is read as a sharp analysis of southern politics: his differences with the Wickremesinghe government, his view of the President and the alliance, and his warning that Tamils will neither live bound within a Sinhala state nor wish to separate if given freedom. The editorial concludes that the President can neither tame the JVP and talk to him nor break with the JVP and join the UNP.
Does Prabhakaran have an answer?
Victor Ivan reads Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech as a shrewd account of southern politics. The LTTE leader traces the breakdown back to Washington, where the UNP’s participation in the aid conference denied his organisation equal-partner status; he rejects every interim administration draft the government produced, insists talks resume on the LTTE’s own ISGA proposals, and refuses to see an interim authority tied to a final settlement — suspecting the President of wanting to please the JVP, mislead the international community, or simply prolong matters indefinitely. He then challenges every southern party to state publicly where it stands on territory, nationhood and self-determination, and warns that Tamil patience has limits. Ivan judges the ball now in Sinhala hands and finds none of them willing to hold it: Wickremesinghe wanting the talks to last until he is President, the President subordinating the ethnic question to her own invalidation problem, and neither able to move without the JVP’s consent. He closes with a warning that the Sinhala people may come to detest their own leaders enough to say Prabhakaran is good for us too.
බහු පක්ෂ ක්රමයට රතු එළියක්: විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ මර නින්දේ
On the day of the alliance’s first budget, UNP MP Rohitha Bogollagama crossed over and was made a minister. Ivan explains how the law on crossovers is being bent to reach 113 seats, what the government plans for the Speaker and the constitution once it has them, and why the JVP’s ‘red democracy’ is the main prop of the scheme while the opposition sleeps.
අධිකරණ දූෂණය – චන්ද්රිකා, රනිල් හා විමල්
The President herself says the police and the courts are full of corruption, and Transparency International ranks them the most corrupt in the region. The editorial replies that the ‘blue’ President injected the poison at the head of the judiciary, the ‘green’ Ranil Wickremesinghe let it spread, and the JVP of Wimal Weerawansa, which first stood against the Chief Justice, fell silent.