Parliamentary Polls and the two centres of power
Two centres of power inside one ruling family, an election held under the shadow of a second COVID wave, and a Supreme Court that let MPs cross the floor without losing their seats.
Setting governance on a firm footing
What the three branches of the state are supposed to do, and what Sri Lanka’s actually do. Victor Ivan’s answer is to hand the constitution to the people, with citizens’ initiatives and referendums built into it.
Recreation of the State
The promised remedy: Victor Ivan’s blueprint for rebuilding the state — a judiciary with the power of judicial review, a reformed legislature and executive, and an end to the plunder of public property.
Cutting the umbilical cord for a new birth
Whoever wins in August, the country reaches a crossroads. Victor Ivan sets out participatory constitution-making as practised elsewhere and argues Sri Lanka must cut the cord to be born again.
Silver line in pitch darkness
Mangala Samaraweera walks away from traditional politics, and Victor Ivan reads the decision as the first crack of light — an established figure joining the argument for system change.
The Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary
A primer on the three pillars — what the legislature, the executive and the judiciary are each for, what judicial review means, and how far Sri Lanka’s institutions have drifted from the description.
Understanding core issues: The key for solution
Answering readers who asked for a solution, Victor Ivan goes back to the core issues — the limits of the independence Sri Lanka was given, the disenfranchisements that followed, and the nation never built.
The role of journalism
Asked why he proposed closing Ravaya, Victor Ivan answers with an account of what the paper was for — the battle against Sarath Nanda Silva, the criminal defamation law, and the case he took to the United Nations.
Stark darkness
The voters believed they were electing a strongman who would rescue them. Victor Ivan describes a country sliding into a bottomless pit while neither its navigators nor its passengers can see what is ahead.
Will the pandemic gorge up democracy?
India and Sri Lanka took the democratic road together at independence. Victor Ivan asks whether the pandemic will let a nominal president govern as a real one, and whether the courts will stop it.