ඡන්ද ක්රමය සේම දේශපාලන ක්රමයද වෙනස් විය යුතුය
Rajapaksa promised during the campaign to change the preferential voting system before the next parliamentary election. Changing the electoral system alone is not enough — the political system must change with it, and for the country’s good rather than a party’s. An executive president answerable to parliament and the courts between elections is possible; so is subjecting every presidential act to judicial review, as in the United States. The president should hold no ministry, lose the power to dissolve parliament at will after a year and to call an early election after four, and face a cap on cabinet size. A mixed proportional and constituency system will only work if the parties themselves are made internally democratic, since the present arrangement gives each leader autocratic power. India requires parties to file accounts with the election commission and auditor general, and candidates to declare assets with their nominations. Any amendment must rest on agreement across all parties, not be built for the ruling party as in 1972 and 1977.
ඡන්ද බලය හා පරමාධිපත්ය බලය
Sovereignty is exercised at elections, Ivan writes, and Sri Lanka’s record of holding them on time is better than its record of holding them freely. He sets out why no elections commission was ever appointed under the 17th Amendment, names who advised against it, and tells voters to make the commissioner keep his back straight.
දේශපාලන ප්රතිසංස්කරණ කොයිබටද?
The chairman of the All Party Conference says the government will put its political proposals only after the presidential and parliamentary elections. Ivan notes that every party has criticised the executive presidency while in opposition except the one that created it, and warns that a constitution written from a two-thirds majority is written one-sidedly, as in 1972 and 1977.
රට යන්නේ කොයිබටද? සමාන අයිතිවාසිකම් පිළිගැනීම
For the first time in thirty years the argument is being conducted by mouths rather than by gun barrels, and Ivan surveys the range of it: implement the 13th Amendment, go beyond it, or solve the question without devolving anything at all. He grants the case against provincial councils — an Indian import, unloved and inefficient — and argues that if a new constitution is made it must be treated as a social contract rather than a party’s instrument.
13 වැනි සංශෝධනයේ අනාගතය
The Jathika Hela Urumaya’s ministers have said they will leave the government if police and land powers are devolved, and that the Tamil people’s problems amount to food, clothing, shelter and social dignity. Ivan answers that the amendment’s value is symbolic as much as practical, and that a country which fought a merciless war and then says the Tamils are its own brothers has to show it.
13 වැනි සංශෝධනය
With the war won, the only voice still raised against the 13th Amendment is the JVP’s — a party that once killed people for supporting provincial councils, then contested them, and is now trying to rise again through them. Ivan notes that the president promised to implement the amendment fully and is doing so from a position the JVP cannot easily inflame.
The Elections Commission and the 17th Amendment
Provincial elections are being held without the Elections Commission the 17th Amendment promised. Ivan recalls Ranil Wickremesinghe’s conduct on the Constitutional Council, including his objection to Justice K.M.M.B. Kulatunga, compares India’s Election Commission, and argues that the amendment’s authors did not understand the presidential system it had to work within.
17 වැනි සංශෝධනය හා මැතිවරණ කොමිසම
Provincial elections are being held without the Elections Commission the 17th Amendment
requires, because Chandrika Kumaratunga refused to appoint one and the refusal has outlived
her. Ivan sets the Indian Election Commission against it — its own budget, its own
quasi-judicial powers, 668 million voters and 800,000 polling stations — and argues that an
amendment bolted on to a constitution built around an unaccountable president was never
going to hold.
ව්යවස්ථා සභාව, උයන්ගොඩ හා විග්නේෂ්වරම්
The Jathika Hela Urumaya objects to Jayadeva Uyangoda’s nomination to the Constitutional
Council because he once served a twelve-year sentence, and the prime minister to C.V.
Wigneswaran’s. Ivan answers that the 1977 government repealed the law Uyangoda was sentenced
under and gazetted that it should not follow him, that Gandhi, Mandela and D.S. Senanayake
were all imprisoned men, and that being Tamil does not make a retired Supreme Court judge a
separatist. The deeper fault, he argues, is a constitution written to place the president
above itself.
දේශපාලන අරමුදල් හෙවත් දූෂණයේ මුදුන් මුල
Ivan puts the cost of a Sri Lankan presidential campaign at between 500 million and a
billion rupees and shows that no law governs where any of it comes from, J.R. Jayewardene
having repealed the pre-1978 controls. Setting the American, French and Indian regimes
against the Sri Lankan vacuum, he argues that parties financed by a few men with black money
must repay them from public resources, and calls this the taproot of the country’s
corruption.