ඉදිරියේ විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
State power is gathered around the executive presidency, so the presidential election matters more than any other, and the system is built so that whoever holds the office can arrange every other election to suit. Ivan works through the court judgment, the Sarath Fonseka factor, where the Tamil vote will go, and the steady evaporation of the war’s pleasure.
දකුණේ මැතිවරණ ප්රතිඵලය දෙස බැලීමක්
The government won the south well but less well than it had announced it would, which cheapened the win. Ivan reads the numbers as showing the president’s standing still strong, and argues that what the government must now protect is what the country is already receiving: settle the quarrels with the West, send home everyone in the camps except the LTTE’s active supporters, and let foreign aid flow.
අද්විතීය බවේ උභතෝකෝටිකය
The government expects a large win in the south, where its base is, but the south is also the most critical province in the country and the uncritical loyalty of six months ago has gone. Ivan sets the president’s standing beside Sarath Fonseka’s — a man made equally singular by the same victory, for whom no office in the country was large enough — and notes how much local politicians’ cut-outs are costing the government in public patience.
මැතිවරණ නීති උල්ලංඝනය
Cut-outs and posters after nominations are illegal, and Ivan asks how the law came to be enforced only when the president ordered the police chief to enforce it. He returns to the assets declarations the commissioner could make compulsory and does not, and ends on the death threats to Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, which cost the country goodwill it cannot spare.
විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්රමය ගැන තවදුරටත්
Ranil Wickremesinghe has written an affectionate essay for J.R. Jayewardene’s 103rd birthday while his party’s official position is that Jayewardene’s creation should be abolished. Ivan takes the essay apart against the record — the referendum, the pardon of Gonawala Sunil, the 1982 district council election run by the ruling party rather than the commissioner, and a bribery commission that in thirty years has convicted nobody.
සමගිය හා ප්රඥාව
The politicians are looking at the southern council election and the presidential one, while the country faces war crimes allegations, the GSP+ question and the displaced. Ivan argues these can only be met if the parties set their divisions aside — and that the voice the country used during the war does not suit the moment. We are no longer entangled with Prabhakaran, he writes, but with the powers of the world.
විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්රමය අවශ්ය නම් එය ප්රතිසංවිධානය කළ යුතුය
A change to the system can only be had if government and opposition both want it for its own sake rather than as a way of unseating each other. Ivan sets the American presidency against the Sri Lankan one point by point — an electoral college rather than a direct vote, no power to dissolve the legislature or to call an early election, an impeachment that can actually remove — and argues that ours was written so that none of those checks bite.
දෙමළ සමාජය ගැන
Three and a half hours with a delegation from the Tamil diaspora — all of them long-standing opponents of the LTTE — gives Ivan an account of the north he could not get otherwise: the local elections, the caste composition of Jaffna now that most Vellala families live abroad, and the widespread refusal to believe Prabhakaran is dead.
මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂගේ හතර අවුරුද්ද
The president may call an election as soon as four years of his term are done — a power added to the constitution by amendment for the benefit of the incumbent and now enjoyed by all of them. Ivan takes stock of the four years: the LTTE gone with not even a ghost of Prabhakaran left, the whole territory in the state’s hands, and the question of whether the respect of opponents as well as supporters can be won.
රට යන්නේ කොයිබටද? සමාන අයිතිවාසිකම් පිළිගැනීම
For the first time in thirty years the argument is being conducted by mouths rather than by gun barrels, and Ivan surveys the range of it: implement the 13th Amendment, go beyond it, or solve the question without devolving anything at all. He grants the case against provincial councils — an Indian import, unloved and inefficient — and argues that if a new constitution is made it must be treated as a social contract rather than a party’s instrument.