ඡන්ද ක්රමය සේම දේශපාලන ක්රමයද වෙනස් විය යුතුය
Rajapaksa promised during the campaign to change the preferential voting system before the next parliamentary election. Changing the electoral system alone is not enough — the political system must change with it, and for the country’s good rather than a party’s. An executive president answerable to parliament and the courts between elections is possible; so is subjecting every presidential act to judicial review, as in the United States. The president should hold no ministry, lose the power to dissolve parliament at will after a year and to call an early election after four, and face a cap on cabinet size. A mixed proportional and constituency system will only work if the parties themselves are made internally democratic, since the present arrangement gives each leader autocratic power. India requires parties to file accounts with the election commission and auditor general, and candidates to declare assets with their nominations. Any amendment must rest on agreement across all parties, not be built for the ruling party as in 1972 and 1977.
සාමකාමී හා ශිෂ්ටසම්පන්නවීමේ වැදගත්කම
Elections are the highest exercise of popular sovereignty and a measure of a country’s political civility — and on that measure Sri Lanka’s record since 1977 offers only cause for shame. Every administration has used state resources and state media for its campaign; only once has election law been followed to the letter, and only because the Supreme Court intervened. People die at every election, the educated speak of it with distress, and everyone forgets once polling closes. Sri Lanka may be the only country with no law controlling party and campaign funds, yet a leading presidential candidate can spend over 1,500 million rupees, and even a parliamentary candidate 100 million. That money is other people’s and must be repaid in some form: this is the foundation of corruption. Whoever wins, both candidates must pledge there will be no reprisals.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය හා නීතියේ පාලනය
The Elections Commissioner has said he may have to withdraw from running the election because his orders are not obeyed — the police ignore him, and state media ignore the Competent Authority. However much authority the constitution grants him, nothing in the country lets him exercise it. This is not new: under Chandrika Kumaratunga an attempt to arrest the Elections Commissioner was stopped only by Attorney General Kamalasabesan’s intervention, and it was Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva who advised her to make it. The 1981 Jaffna district council poll was the first time a ruling party seized election administration outright, and Commissioner Jayasekera resigned over it. Since 1982 no election has been free and fair. Powers mean nothing while the ruler declines to obey the law.
ජය – පරාජය
The presidential contest can only end with one man winning and the other losing, and the system is built so that struggle runs on hatred rather than argument. Rajapaksa and Fonseka fought Prabhakaran on the same side and praised each other publicly; now each sees a traitor across the field, and the public that cheered both has split into camps that regard the other candidate with the loathing once reserved for Prabhakaran. Given that venom, the losing leader and his senior followers will face reprisal whoever wins. The press profits by fanning it. Beneath this lies a system that keeps one party in power for decades — seventeen years to the first change of government, sixteen so far for this one — long enough for the bureaucracy and police to make common cause with whoever rules.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය නිදහස් හා සාධාරණ විය යුතුය
The presidential election decides state power, and it is being held without an elections commission, with all its powers resting in one commissioner. Ivan lists what a fair contest requires — the opposition left to campaign unobstructed, its supporters not intimidated — and reminds both sides that winner and loser have to live in the same country afterwards.
ඡන්ද බලය හා පරමාධිපත්ය බලය
Sovereignty is exercised at elections, Ivan writes, and Sri Lanka’s record of holding them on time is better than its record of holding them freely. He sets out why no elections commission was ever appointed under the 17th Amendment, names who advised against it, and tells voters to make the commissioner keep his back straight.
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.
මැතිවරණ කොමසාරිස්වරයා හා වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය
The law requires every candidate to declare the assets and liabilities of themselves, their spouse and their children under eighteen, and the elections commissioner has the power to make nominations conditional on it. Ivan asks why he does not use it, and proposes that the declarations be published on the department’s website so the public can read them.
මහජනයාගේ පරමාධිපත්ය බලය සමග සෙල්ලම් කිරීම
The elections commissioner has asked voters not to vote for candidates accused of thuggery
and corruption, and Ivan asks how they are supposed to know who those are. India requires
every nomination to carry a sworn statement of assets and of cases pending; Sri Lanka has an
assets law that is not enforced and no ceiling at all on spending, while some Western
Province candidates have spent three or four hundred million rupees.
17 වැනි සංශෝධනය හා මැතිවරණ කොමිසම
Provincial elections are being held without the Elections Commission the 17th Amendment
requires, because Chandrika Kumaratunga refused to appoint one and the refusal has outlived
her. Ivan sets the Indian Election Commission against it — its own budget, its own
quasi-judicial powers, 668 million voters and 800,000 polling stations — and argues that an
amendment bolted on to a constitution built around an unaccountable president was never
going to hold.