The revolution betrayed and the fate of Sri Lanka
Not the voters but their leaders were the fools of 2015. Victor Ivan calls the good-governance years a betrayed revolution and traces the counter-revolution it made inevitable.
2015, a dilemma; 2020, a flummox
Victor Ivan reads the Gotabaya government as the logical product of the good-governance years that preceded it — the narrowed agenda, the black money, the commissions that never worked.
True status of the Judiciary
A court that approves the removal of the people’s own instruments of sovereignty. Victor Ivan sets the Indian Supreme Court beside the Sri Lankan bench and returns to the years he spent fighting Sarath Nanda Silva.
Prime factors of the crisis
The pandemic did not cause this. Victor Ivan takes the crisis apart into its four components — the social order, the riots, the political system and the economy — and gives the remedy for each in brief.
Anarchy, dictatorship and the Constitution
Everyone is watching the 20th Amendment; Victor Ivan is watching the whirlwind behind it, which he expects to destroy both the remaining democracy and the dictatorial ambitions at once.
Comprehending the puzzles of 19th and 20th Amendments
Both amendments are pickpockets, Victor Ivan writes — one in democratic dress, one in a dictator’s robe. What neither touches is the president’s licence to treat public property as his own.
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.
Ignoring the crisis
A throne speech that never mentions the crisis. Victor Ivan sets the President’s words against the World Bank’s forecasts, the collapse of state revenue and the half-million jobs about to be lost in the Gulf.
Criminalisation of politics
India counts the criminal cases against its MPs; Sri Lanka does not count at all. Victor Ivan sets the two countries’ records side by side and asks why no one here has thought the question worth asking.
Seducing the Parliament
How Parliament was bought: Victor Ivan traces the estates, contracts and licences J.R. Jayewardene handed his MPs, and asks whether the new House will break the silence its predecessors kept.