Loveable 19th and fearsome 20th
Everyone is defending the 19th Amendment against the 20th. Victor Ivan argues the country was already in the dark under the 19th, and that those who cannot see that will not understand what the 20th does.
Will the pandemic gorge up democracy?
India and Sri Lanka took the democratic road together at independence. Victor Ivan asks whether the pandemic will let a nominal president govern as a real one, and whether the courts will stop it.
Power and the pandemic
If Gotabaya Rajapaksa wanted the power to govern, Victor Ivan argues, he contested the wrong office — and the gap between the image built for him and the powers he actually holds is now deepening the crisis.
Ignoring the main problem
The 19th Amendment stripped the president of executive power but left the office elected as if nothing had changed. Victor Ivan argues the country keeps patching its errors instead of correcting them.
The presidency and the dilemma of the Presidential Election
J.R. Jayewardene built the presidency to make himself a king; the 19th Amendment hollowed it out but left the crown on. Victor Ivan reads the 2019 field — Gotabaya, the UNP’s impasse, the JVP — against that comedy.
What is happening?
The patient needs surgery and the doctors are discussing the election. Victor Ivan sets out what the next president will and will not be able to do, and why the contest itself is in crisis.
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.
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.
ජනාධිපතිවරණයේ ගති ලක්ෂණ
Ivan examines how the President resolved the Eighteenth Amendment dispute by seeking the Supreme Court’s opinion on 5 November 2014, which he says shows a judiciary tamed since the impeachment of Shirani Bandaranayake, recalling J.R. Jayewardene’s treatment of the courts. He criticises the Commissioner of Elections’ passivity over the election’s timing and the Pope’s visit, and warns that the opposition’s disunity and factionalism could hand the government a third term and push the country towards anarchy.
විලි බිය අහිමි කරගැනීම
As the January 2015 campaign begins informally, Ivan argues that a third-term candidacy under the Eighteenth Amendment shows a government that has lost all shame. He recalls the Kalawana case after 1977, when an election petition by Sarath Muttetuwegama unseated the UNP’s Pilapitiya and Speaker Bakeer Markar’s ruling produced two members for one seat, to show how elections were once policed. He lists the corrupt practices defined in the Presidential Elections Act of 1981 that the head of state is committing, and contrasts the discipline of India’s election commission, which checked even Narendra Modi.