තරුණ වෛරය සහ අසහනය
There have been three violent insurrections in Sri Lanka since independence, all of them youth insurrections, two Sinhala and one Tamil. The JVP’s 1971 rising was the first attempt by a political organisation to seize power by armed revolt, and a simple one that the forces put down easily in under a month. What follows is Ivan’s reckoning of where Wijeweera and Prabhakaran belong, and of what there is in all this to be shaken by.
ගංවතුර, නායයෑම් හා ප්රාදේශීය පාලනය
The damage done by the heavy rain and the floods is enormous, worst in the North Central, Eastern, Northern and Central provinces. Close to nine hundred thousand people are affected and more than two hundred thousand are in camps; across five districts 116 tanks are wholly damaged and another 238 partly.
පොල්, කුකුළු මස් හා බිත්තර ආනයනය
Importing coconuts as a remedy for the shortage can be called a good and useful act; importing chicken and eggs to control their price cannot. From there the article turns to the spread of monkeys and wild boar, to animal husbandry and religious belief, and to a decision Ivan calls genuinely revolutionary — making vocational education compulsory for those who fail their O levels.
වසන්ත සමයේ අවසානය
Because of the absolute power the presidency gives, leaders who reach it fall in love with the system as a matter of habit. But it was never properly made, and the oppression built into it works not only on the opposition and the public but on the president himself — and what a leader who reaches the office can see is only the sweetness of absolute power, never the poison hidden under it.
විදුලි මිල හා ප්රශ්න
Raising the price of electricity is destructive not only to ordinary people but to manufacturers and businesses. Widening the concession from 90 units to 120 relieves ordinary households and settles nothing for industry: in ceramics and similar trades electricity is about half the cost of production, and the rise limits what some industries can compete at.
සිරසට එල්ල වූ ප්රහාරය හා ඉදිරිය දැකීම
The attack on Sirasa’s head office in Braybrooke Place makes an ugly picture for the government, which has clashed with the network since the war and appeared to want it punished. Whatever set off this second attack, it looks like a campaign by the government or people connected to it against a media house that backed the opposition at the presidential election. Ivan concedes the government could argue Sirasa obstructed the war — a state may suspend most fundamental rights in wartime, and the power to wage war rests with the state, not with journalists — and notes that the press did not obstruct the campaigns against the two JVP insurrections, saving criticism until afterwards. But the war ended more than six months ago and the President has since won the election too. Supporting Fonseka was not illegal, and the winner is the one who should let old grudges go.
රටට වෙනස්කම් අවශ්යද?
Given how rotten the political system and state administration had become, Ivan writes, winning the separatist war should be counted a miracle — the armed forces and police included people working for the LTTE for money, which shows how far the institutions had decayed. The question now is whether to go forward with that rot or reform it. Every important part is corroded: legislature, executive, electoral system, courts, public service, public services, media. The President has accepted change is needed but has set out no philosophy beyond the voting system and cabinet size, and it is unclear whether he means to win two-thirds by agreement with the opposition or by buying its members across. Ivan lists what remains unresolved — the executive presidency, a German-style mixed electoral system, the constitutional council killed after the 17th Amendment, judicial power used oppressively, customs revenue of which perhaps a quarter reaches the treasury, and education adrift.
වේගවත් ඉදිරිගමනක් සඳහා දූෂණයට වැට බැඳිය යුතුය
Sri Lanka can only move quickly after the war if it reforms the political and institutional obstacles in its way, and cutting the cabinet to thirty-five is a start. Ivan attacks a convention he traces to J.R. Jayewardene: letting ministers and office-holders enrich themselves from the transactions of the ministries beneath them, which drains the treasury and turns politics from a matter of honour into a squalid way of making money. He questions the privileges — two vehicle permits for a six-year term when one car easily lasts six years, permits for officials who already have official cars, ministers running fleets, backup vehicles for bodyguards now the war is over. Corruption is not confined to politics: Customs collects perhaps a quarter of what it should, and Inland Revenue, Motor Traffic and Excise are no different. Information technology could triple that revenue at modest cost.
නව ආණ්ඩුක්රම ව්යවස්ථාවක් ඇතිකර ගැනීම
Constitutional reform deserves more of the public’s attention than the parliamentary election itself. The government asks for a two-thirds majority to change the system, but Ivan argues it does not need one: a constitution is a social contract, and no single party represents the whole of a society made up of the SLFP, the UNP, the JVP, the Tamil National Alliance, the Hela Urumaya and much else. Sri Lanka’s record here is poor — three constitutions since independence and now a fourth, where countries write them to last centuries. America has the world’s shortest and has not tired of it in two hundred years; India has the longest and credits it with meeting each challenge. Bandaranaike in 1970 and Jayewardene in 1977 both used their majorities to exclude the opposition; Nehru, with a comparable majority, spent three and a half years including everyone. Rajapaksa should not repeat their mistake.
පාර්ලිමේන්තු මැතිවරණයෙන් පසු
With the opposition’s enthusiasm spent and its forces fighting the parliamentary election separately, Ivan expects the government to take 130 to 135 seats. He argues this is the historic moment for constitutional reform, and that it will only command respect if the opposition is brought in rather than bypassed by buying UNP members across. His programme: a mixed German-style electoral system, internal democracy in parties, publication of asset declarations on a website for continuous public scrutiny, the information act Milinda Moragoda has proposed, and opening parliamentary committees to the press. On devolution he proposes abandoning the province as the universal unit — keeping it only for the North, where the Tamil majority is overwhelming, and using the district everywhere else, with village councils on the Indian panchayat model beneath. He notes the President won 58 votes in every hundred and his opponent 40, and that reform must include the 40.