සිය කැමැත්තෙන් විනාශයට යන රටක්
Lacking the wisdom to untie simple knots, Sri Lanka has let them grow into tangles, and the people pay the price. The editorial notes that the investigation into Judge Ambepitiya’s murder identified an underworld figure as the mastermind, and urges voters to make the candidates present, without lies, their vision for the country’s problems.
නායකයන්ගේ වගකීමෙන් තොර බව
The presidential election is being held with neither an Elections Commission nor a Constitutional Council, leaving the Elections Commissioner, the man the 17th Amendment has hurt most, ‘caught like an areca nut in the cutter’. A second section, on the rule of law and the Chief Justice, counts the motion for a select committee on the Diyawanna Oya affair as a third impeachment charge against him.
මහින්දට විය හැක්කේ කුමක් ද?
Mahinda Rajapaksa is near the top, a remarkable feat in a party dominated by one family, and he got there not as a Bandaranaike retainer. Ivan weighs Chandrika Kumaratunga’s decision not to fight him at the convention, and his bold readiness to meet Prabhakaran against his pact with the JVP and Hela Urumaya to keep the unitary state.
රටේ යහපත් වෙනසක් සඳහා පක්ෂ ක්රමය ද වෙනස්විය යුතුය
The SLFP marked its 54th anniversary and the UNP its 59th on the same day. Every head of state since independence has come through these two parties, yet after more than five decades neither has modernised or allowed internal democracy.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය හා අවිචාරවත් නායකයින්
Any democracy needs a balance between legislature, executive and judiciary. Sri Lanka is sliding into a failed state, though its educated class rejects the label, and the neglect of the 17th Amendment shows it: there is still no Constitutional Council, and neither candidate seems interested in setting one up.
මහින්ද-වීරවංශ දීගය හරි යයිද?
Back from Japan, the President did not quarrel with Mahinda Rajapaksa but backed his candidacy, leaving herself room for a later return. Mahinda is now in a bind: saying yes to the JVP’s conditions will cost him some of the forces gathering around him.
අගවිනිසුරු කරණම
The Chief Justice is playing a political conjuror. Ivan argues that the crisis over the election year was his own creation, from the circumstances of the President’s first public swearing-in after the bomb attack to the story of a second oath, invented to stretch her term by a year, and shows how the aim shifted along the way.
විමල් වීරවංශ හා ඇටි කෙහෙල්
Like the civet in the saying who ate a seeded banana, the JVP tried to swallow the SLFP and cannot digest it; now it can only hang on Mahinda Rajapaksa’s neck, and Wimal Weerawansa says any deal will be with Mahinda, not the SLFP.
A Country Destroyed by Leaders
Victor Ivan argues that Sri Lanka has become, or is fast becoming, a failed state — a term its academics resist because they fear UN administration, while making no serious intervention to correct the country’s course. His test is the constitution: legislature, executive and judiciary alike decline to respect it, and none treats honouring it as a condition of the system’s survival. The 17th Amendment provides his illustration. A presidential campaign is underway with no elections commission in place, the President having refused to approve a name the constitutional council investigated and cleared. The elections commissioner, past retirement age and unable to leave his post because no commission exists, went to court and was told there was nothing the judiciary could do; parliament did not debate the matter at all. The constitutional council itself has been dormant for months, leaving Court of Appeal vacancies unfilled, with the IGP retiring in November and the terms of the Police and Public Service Commissions expiring. Appointing new members falls to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition — the two men now contesting the presidency, neither of whom appears interested.
අධිකරණ තීන්දුවෙන් පසු: ඊළගට විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
The Chief Justice’s only way out of a great crisis over the election year was to rule for 2005, ending the President’s dream of staying until 2006, though she still has cards to play. Ivan warns that the country is caught in a cycle of political violence and that the killings must be controlled even as attention turns to the election.