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.
The dilemma of the victory
A two-thirds majority and no idea what to do with it. Victor Ivan reads the 2020 landslide as a dilemma for the winners — and reserves his sharpest analysis for what became of the UNP and the JVP.
The post-election saga
Whatever the election returns, Victor Ivan expects deadlock — a shrinking economy, half a million jobs lost abroad, and three underlying failures that no majority can vote away.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Power and the pandemic
If Gotabaya Rajapaksa wanted the power to govern, Victor Ivan argues, he contested the wrong office — and the gap between the image built for him and the powers he actually holds is now deepening the crisis.
End of an era?
The pandemic is an accident, not a conspiracy. Victor Ivan argues it has merely accelerated a collapse already under way, and asks whether what is ending is a government or an era.