ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදී ප්රතිසංස්කරණ සඳහා සර්ව පාක්ෂික ආණ්ඩුවක්
The PA is close to collapse: SLFP factions are feuding, most of the SLMC and NUA are drifting away, and S.B. Dissanayake has demanded the President give up the Finance Ministry while promoting a national government under Ratnasiri Wickremanayake. The editorial notes the UNP deal with Rauff Hakeem, the no-confidence motion against Mahipala Herath and the stay on impeachment, and urges an all-party interim government to enact reforms rather than a UNP-dominated one.
A game of switching friends and foes
The PA government is in political uncertainty. With a UNP no-confidence motion gathering momentum it has become suspicious not only of its enemies but of its allies, and appears to have lost the capacity to look at anything calmly or logically.
සතුරන් සේම මිතුරන්ද සැකයි
Ivan describes a People’s Alliance government paralysed by fear of a no-confidence motion. Its margin has shrunk from 37 seats before the 2000 election to nine, with no outside support, so six defections would bring it down. Thondaman, Hakeem and even S.B. Dissanayake are restive, the President accuses allies of taking LTTE money, and the Prime Minister blocked lifting the LTTE ban. The opposition must act before October, when the President may dissolve Parliament.
ජනාධිපති අරමුදල හා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told Parliament that the President’s Fund need not table accounts because it receives nothing from the Consolidated Fund. The editorial calls this misleading: the Act subjects the fund to audit and parliamentary scrutiny, it has not been audited since 1995, and it is fed by state lotteries worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 million a year, comparable to Samurdhi or war capital spending. It traces the fund to J.R. Jayewardene and recalls an incomplete list of beneficiaries given to Sarath Kongahage.
President’s Fund draws instant money
The Prime Minister has told parliament that the President’s Fund need not table its accounts because no money is allocated to it from the consolidated fund. That statement misled parliament and the public both, and will feed the doubts people already have about the fund.
විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
With the President barred from a third term, a cold war over the SLFP succession has begun, with S.B. Dissanayake, now party secretary and holder of several ministries, pushing aggressively ahead of Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake. The editorial surveys the pressures on the People’s Alliance: a UNP strategy for an all-party interim government, a JVP now openly hostile and able to topple two provincial councils, and restlessness in the CWC, SLMC and Communist Party.
තමන්ට රජ සැප ඇත්නම් රට මකබෑවී ගියත් කම් නැතැයි සිතන ඇමතිවරු
Despite the President’s circular limiting ministers to three vehicles, Planning Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi uses fourteen, including seven kept from the Health Ministry, as does former Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, so the new Health Minister borrows vehicles from the Labour Ministry. The piece also cites S.B. Dissanayake’s granite in his new official residence and warns that the country is at the limit of such greed.
යන්නෙ කොහේද? මල්ලෙ පොල්
Ivan catalogues the absurdities of government: the President’s television pledge not to postpone local elections, contradicted by the news bulletin that followed; her claim that democratic freedom is complete as the International Press Institute put Sri Lanka on its watch list; Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake blaming democracy for the decline; attacks on the UNP’s march in Kegalle linked to Mahipala Herath; and a curb on ministers’ vehicles issued after they had all been bought.
ආර්ථික අර්බුදය හා රාජාණ්ඩු දේශපාලනය
As prices soar, the government has used police against a JVP protest while fishermen strike and the UNP turns to agitation. The editorial blames poor governance rather than external factors, citing the flour subsidy before the 1994 election, misdirected Samurdhi payments, unmetered electricity users, lost port revenue after the President moved to the Fort residence, the French locomotive deal and a Rs. 2,500 million new presidential palace, and calls for an open democratic system.
Economic mess? turn the searchlight inwards
The government is trying to put the economy right with extreme measures that have driven prices up and laid an unbearable burden on the poor, and it wants the liquidity crisis understood as something external that it could not control. The internal factor it will not admit is mismanagement.