රනිල් ද? මහින්ද ද?
Leftward forces gather around Mahinda Rajapaksa and rightward ones around Ranil Wickremesinghe; Mahinda is new, Ranil old. The editorial argues that a candidate must lead his own movement, so either Chandrika must hand Mahinda the power willingly or he must take it without splitting the party.
ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකයන්ගේ වගකීම
The presidential race has begun, but on trivia rather than the country’s main problems. Taking public transport and another pressing issue as examples of about a dozen, the editorial says voters should demand to know what solutions the candidates offer.
ජනාධිපතිවරණ ප්රහේළිකාව
The Elections Commissioner has the constitutional power to fix the date and has already decided, but the Supreme Court’s view is unclear. The editorial argues that the oath the President took publicly on 22 December 1999 should be accepted, so that her term ends on 22 December 2005, and notes that the Chief Justice will be the saddest when it does.
අගවිනිසුරු අන්තෝ ජටා බහි ජටා තත්ත්වයක
The question of whether the presidential election falls this year or next has become a legal knot. Fearing the Elections Commissioner’s decision, the President sought the Supreme Court’s interpretation, while Omalpe Sobhitha Thera petitioned to stop it; whatever the Chief Justice decides will anger one side.
විමුක්තිගේ භාෂා අවුල
In the middle of a political crisis the President has shown off her son Vimukthi, perhaps to test demand for the ‘prince’. His remarks recall how his grandfather S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike tangled the dog question with the language question; the editorial laments a country forever lost in empty arguments while it cannot even agree when to hold elections.
සටන් විරාම ගිවිසුම ආරක්ෂා කරගත යුතු යි
The Sinhala south is absorbed in the unsettled questions of the presidential election while the ceasefire is plainly at risk: figures published by the Sahajeevana foundation show political killings in the East rising from 14 a month in 2004 to 18 in 2005. The editorial urges the two leading candidates to agree before the election to protect the ceasefire and restart talks.
මහින්ද-අනුර සමීකරණය
In naming Mahinda Rajapaksa as presidential candidate, the President also named Anura Bandaranaike as prime ministerial candidate, which no one had asked for. The editorial reads it as two steps back and one forward in her fight against irrelevance, a fierce chess move, and compares her use of the courts with J.R. Jayewardene’s.
The Mahinda – Anura Equation
The President has named Mahinda Rajapaksa her party’s presidential candidate and her own brother its prime ministerial candidate, though only the first nomination was asked for — and done while an amendment making her SLFP leader for life was being introduced. Victor Ivan reads it as a chess move of some cunning: in every sequence of elections, a defeated Mahinda loses even the seat he holds while Anura Bandaranaike emerges as leader of the opposition, and family control of the party survives the defeat. Behind it sits the unresolved question of whether the presidential election falls in 2005 or 2006, and a chain of unanswerable questions about what the Elections Commissioner will decide, whether the President will seek a Supreme Court interpretation first, and what either will do if they disagree. Ivan then turns to the parties themselves, arguing neither main party is democratic — the SLFP run by one family, the UNP by several — and traces the pattern of leaders seeking to escape their term limits: Jayewardene collecting undated resignation letters from a five-sixths majority and dreaming of a third term until Premadasa stood against him, Kumaratunga collecting the same letters from twenty-three deputy ministers in 2000 with the judiciary’s support. Her dreams end, he concludes, only if Mahinda can become a Premadasa.
පිරිවරක් නැති රැජිණට රනිල්ගේ පිහිටයි
Unable to show a winning plan to avoid irrelevance, the President is being deserted; seniors who backed her on the tsunami mechanism are not with her on the candidacy. The editorial suggests she may seek future protection from Ranil Wickremesinghe as J.R. Jayewardene and D.B. Wijetunga once did, and considers Mahinda Rajapaksa’s hardest task: pleasing nationalists and minorities at once.
නැති අවුල් ඇති කිරීම
Rulers who ignore the basic law are a lasting source of Sri Lanka’s political confusion, from the United Front’s new constitution of 1972 to the UNP’s in 1978. Ivan shows that everyone, the Chief Justice included, once accepted that the President’s second term began on 22 December 1999, as the transitional provisions of the 2000 draft constitution confirm, and argues that the election should be held this year.