Ensuring healthy peace talks
After the failure of Agni Khiela the government has had to soften the hard conditions it set for starting talks. It now enters negotiations from weakness rather than strength, and the talks are likelier to deepen its crisis than to steady it.
කුණාටුව තවමත් අවසන් වී නැත
Ivan argues that the UNP revolt, though it did not unseat Ranil Wickremesinghe, curbed his autocratic leadership, raised internal democracy and forced him to promise to step aside if he obstructed an all-party government. Neither the PA nor the JVP wanted a change of UNP leader. With no outside support and a slender majority, the government could fall on a handful of defections, and Parliament, which controls law and money, could then reform the whole system.
Importance of democracy within a party
There is a real discussion in the country about broadening democratic freedom and the reforms it needs, and almost all of it is about how to reform the state. The parties, which are the state’s main instrument, are doing nothing to strengthen democracy inside themselves.
රනිල්ගේ අනාගතය
After the failed budget vote, Ivan argues that most UNP MPs now believe the party needs new leadership to defeat the government and form an all-party interim administration, with Karu Jayasuriya as Opposition Leader and Gamini Atukorale as party leader. He traces Wickremesinghe’s weakness to his rapid rise after the assassinations, distrust of seniors and Gamini Dissanayake’s supporters, and soft opposition, and urges him at least to give up the Opposition leadership.
රනිල් විරෝධී කුණාටුව
Ivan gives a detailed account of the UNP revolt against Ranil Wickremesinghe after a plan to defeat the budget, with Thondaman’s four votes and defectors from the People’s Alliance, collapsed at midnight. Thondaman later said he was never asked. The piece follows the group of 23 MPs led by Gamini Atukorale, Karu Jayasuriya and Rajitha Senaratne, their demand that Jayasuriya become Opposition Leader, the seven-member committee Wickremesinghe appointed, and his delay over impeaching the Chief Justice.
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.
Ranil’s dilemma: Party or himself
The government avoided defeat on the budget without finding out who was adding to the four members of Thondaman’s group who had agreed to vote it down, and without uniting its own ranks against a repeat. The instability that produced is the setting for a question about the opposition leader.
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.
ජනාධිපතිනිය දූෂිත ද?
As the President offers to answer opposition charges in Parliament herself, Ivan argues that a leader must dispel public suspicion created by her inner circle. He sets out the evidence that BOI chairman Thilan Wijesinghe sought a $1 million bribe over the Galle flour mill, Rajan Asirwatham’s conflicted role in the Kotagala plantation sale, the unseen influence of Ronnie Peiris behind highway and Diyawanna projects, and the government’s refusal to release ministers’ asset declarations.
සාම කතා ඇරඹීම
Peace talks with the LTTE are due in early May, driven by international pressure after foreign help stopped the Tigers taking Jaffna. Ivan argues that the LTTE now knows Eelam will not be accepted and has softened its claim to be the sole representative of Tamils, but doubts the government’s maturity: it lacks an opposition consensus, a secure majority and internal unity. He urges state reform, accountability of the presidency and the independent commissions as the basis for consensus.