End of an era
The state the British handed over in 1948 has finished collapsing, Victor Ivan writes. Elections now decide not only who governs but who gets to plunder — and the era that began at independence ends in 2020.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sri Lanka: Out of the frying pan into the fire
Seventy-two years in four phases, each worse than the last. Victor Ivan totals the debt against government revenue and argues the country has passed from the frying pan into the fire.
Parliamentary Election and anarchy
Behind the carnival of a parliamentary election, Victor Ivan sees anarchy: soldiers doing police work, a constitution honoured informally, and a central bank robbed with no one held to account.
Anarchy and the Judiciary
The new government wants the corruption cases withdrawn and the courts will not oblige. Victor Ivan reads the resulting cold war as the one place in the state where something is still being defended.