ස්ථාවර ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටුවීම අසීරුයි
Ivan calls the October 2000 poll the biggest ballot plunder in parliamentary history, yet the People’s Alliance won only 107 seats and lacks a majority even with the EPDP. He compares the 1994 arithmetic, notes the Muslim Congress’s resentment after Ashraff’s death and his National Unity Alliance’s four seats, and warns that EU observers’ findings could hit aid or bring sanctions. The JVP emerged strong and disciplined, the UNP was complacent, and the Sihala Urumaya was routed.
නිදහස් හා සාධාරණය කොයිබටද
As the Alliance for Democracy ties yellow bands on voters’ wrists, the President has run an advertisement pledging a free and fair poll ‘as in six previous elections’. Ivan says this would make the North Western poll and the 1999 presidential election fair, likens it to J.R. Jayewardene’s referendum, and lists jobs, loans and land handed out after dissolution. He details violence in Anuradhapura, Kandy, Kegalle, Puttalam and Matale, where police shot a JVP protester, and warns that victory by force lays the ground for rebellion.
චන්ද්රිකා පාලනයේ ඇතැම් ගති ලක්ෂණ අනාගතය
Ivan argues that Chandrika Kumaratunga reached power by chance, as Vijaya Kumaratunga, Lalith Athulathmudali, Ranasinghe Premadasa and Gamini Dissanayake left the scene and Anura Bandaranaike quit the SLFP. Lacking experience, she sidelined seasoned figures such as Dharmasiri Senanayake and Mahinda Rajapaksa in favour of S.B. Dissanayake and Mangala Samaraweera. He lists broken promises on the executive presidency, the ‘Pajero culture’, duty-free vehicle permits and liquor licences for MPs, condemns her record of rigged elections, and warns that the worst of her rule may come in a second six years.
කවුරු දිනුවත් ජනාධිපති ක්රමය අහෝසි වන ඡන්දයක්
Ivan describes S.B. Dissanayake as the man now steering the People’s Alliance, whose hints foretold the dropping of Lakshman Jayakody and possibly Richard Pathirana, and who shaped the national list. He recounts the sidelining of Dharmasiri Senanayake, S.B.’s ambitions for the media ministry and premiership, and alarm within the alliance at a drift towards junta rule. With no clear winner likely, any government will need small parties such as the JVP and may have to agree to abolish the presidency.
නිදහස් හා සාධාරණ මැතිවරණයක් සඳහා
Ivan explains how electoral fraud became institutionalised after the 1978 executive presidency made power hard to change and bent the public service and police to the executive, from the 1981 Jaffna poll to the North Western election of 1999 and the subtler rigging of the presidential poll. He announces the ‘Swarna Bandhana’ yellow-ribbon campaign by the Alliance for Democracy, sixty unions and mass organisations, asking a million people to wear yellow bands until polling day, with religious institutions joining.
Parliament after polls: cohabitation or conflict?
What will the new parliament look like? Will the PA improve its slender majority or find itself on the opposition benches? A seat-by-seat reading written a fortnight before the October 2000 general election.
විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
The editorial analyses the likely shape of the new Parliament. The People’s Alliance held about 129 seats through the Muslim Congress, Ceylon Workers’ Congress and EPDP, but splits in the first two and the EPDP’s weak prospects in Jaffna threaten that base, while the JVP may win eight to ten seats. Neither major party is likely to pass 100 seats, and any result may push the executive presidency into crisis, possibly ending in a national government.
සැප වාහන ප්රතික්ෂේප කරන විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ පිළිවෙත අගේ කළ යුතුයි
Ivan praises the UNP parliamentary group’s decision on duty-free vehicles for MPs, a practice the UNP itself began. It proposes either vehicles on a depreciation basis or a pool of vehicles not owned by MPs, as the JVP suggested, and says MPs completing ten years will forgo a third duty-free vehicle. If most of the opposition holds to this, the government cannot keep the privilege for itself.
When the going gets tough, PA gets going
The government’s greatest hope was to change the electoral system somehow, introduce a new one, and win the coming parliamentary election on it. That hope has gone, and the path left is a difficult one: lose the majority and the presidential system itself goes into crisis.
චන්ද්රිකාගේ නව ආණ්ඩුක්රම ව්යවස්ථාව
Ivan calls the President’s constitution a scheme to keep power under the banner of an ethnic solution, as her father used Sinhala grievances in 1956. Tied to a new electoral system, it provoked the JVP, Sihala Urumaya and UNP, alarmed her own MPs, and she attacked rather than persuaded the Sangha. Using the analogy of complex surgery by an unqualified surgeon, he contrasts her with Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, who gave up power for a settlement.