බිබික්කම ලස්සන කිරීම
G.L. Peiris told The Hindu that the UNP backs an executive presidency, but a reformed one. Ivan lists the further reforms such a system would need, recounts how a joint reform proposal failed when Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera’s signed copy never came back, and closes with sections on ‘the Chief Justice of the Dharma State’ and ‘a hunter’s sermon’.
ව්යවස්ථාව හිතුමතයේ වෙනස් කිරීම වෙනම රාජ්යයකට පාර කැපීමකි
The coming presidential election now steers politics in the South, and the President must complete a change that saves her from irrelevance before August 2005. The editorial warns that entering peace talks with hidden political aims rather than an honest wish to end the conflict could open the road to a separate state.
රනිල් හා චන්ද්රිකා: විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්රමයේ ඊළග දගර නැටුම
The UNP has finally spoken about the President’s secret second swearing-in. The editorial asks why Ranil Wickremesinghe never fought the executive presidency when he held a parliamentary majority, and says that backing real reform would be his best answer to the belief that he too is an autocrat.
ජාතියේ ගෞරවය කෙලෙසන පාසල් ක්රමයේ වෙනසක්
Ivan argues that the school system turns the whole country into liars and pushes parents into fraud to win a Grade 1 place. He proposes a reorganised system of primary, secondary and A-level schools with equal facilities, addresses laboratories and maintenance funding, and sets out tables for each level.
අවලංගුවීම වළකා ගැනීම
President Kumaratunga presses on with her plan to avoid political irrelevance after her second term: the costly JVP alliance, the defeat of the UNP, and a constitutional change she hopes the Chief Justice will help her through. Ivan argues that growing economic hardship is the chief obstacle to her plan and to the referendum it needs.
පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඇස් නොපෙනේද?
Parliament has the final responsibility for the country’s course, yet it will not even look at a case in which a citizen who sued the Chief Justice and members of the Judicial Service Commission was tried by a bench that included a respondent. Parliament should not meddle with the courts, the editorial says, but it must correct a judiciary that has stopped behaving in a civilised way.
සන්ධාන ආණ්ඩුව දුෂ්කර කඩුල්ලක් ජයගනී
With Arumugam Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress and its eight MPs on board, the alliance government has overcome its lack of a parliamentary majority. The editorial says the President’s hardest task now is to satisfy both Velupillai Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
Alliance Government Crosses A Difficult Hurdle
Thondaman’s CWC has brought eight MPs to the Alliance, and with three from the SLMC and one JHU monk the government reaches 118 — enough to govern, but thirty-two short of what the President actually wants. Victor Ivan credits her nerve: she dissolved a parliament the UNP controlled, broke her promise to the Speaker, allied with the JVP at the risk of her own party, and won a gamble that had her survival at stake, while the leader of the opposition remained in a world of his dreams. Her remaining aim is to avoid invalidation at the end of her second term, and Ivan judges that despite her stated preference for abolishing the executive presidency she will instead seek to amend it to permit three terms — a course she can justify to the minorities, to her own party and to the JVP in turn. The arithmetic runs through Prabhakaran: satisfying him on the ISGA delivers the TNA’s twenty-two MPs and brings a two-thirds majority within ten UNP defections. The difficulty is pleasing Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
රට මංමුළා වූ ගමනක
Like the floating rupee, the country has been left to drift. The government lacks a majority and agrees on nothing fundamental, and its talk of self-sufficiency recalls the United Front government of 1970–77. The editorial warns of a slide into full crisis.
තෝරාගත් පිරිසකට පමණක් පඩි වැඩි කරන ප්රතිපත්තිය කුමක් ද?
The government promised all public servants a 70 per cent pay rise but has raised only the salaries of appellate and Supreme Court judges, on the ground of an anomaly with High Court judges. The editorial also asks how arrears for lower-court judges were paid without Parliament approving a supplementary estimate.