රණ බෙර වැයීමෙන් විය හැක්කේ විනාශයකි
As a newspaper, Ravaya has always stood for peace, not war. Both Chandrika Kumaratunga’s and Ranil Wickremesinghe’s peace efforts failed, but the editorial warns that a new war would be more destructive than any before, whoever won, and that only the public can change the picture.
වේළුපිල්ලේ ප්රභාකරන් හා රනිල් වික්රමසිංහ
The LTTE is turning from talks back to war, and it is still unexplained why it wanted Ranil Wickremesinghe defeated. Wickremesinghe trusted the TNA and the Tamils to back him without conditions; Ivan concludes that a Prabhakaran who was half-way to good has been pushed somewhere worse, and Wickremesinghe can no longer claim to be the leader who won Tamil trust.
නිර්භීතකමේදි ඇයට හිමි තැන අසමසමය
For all her failings, Chandrika Kumaratunga was unmatched in courage. Ivan tells how he learned of the Suriyakanda mass graves from a young engineer who came to Ravaya in 1993, how the exposure unfolded, and reproduces the verse appeal to mothers, sisters and daughters that she signed; he concludes that Suriyakanda mattered to her for its usefulness rather than its meaning.
ප්රභාකරන්ගේ වීර දින පණිවුඩය
President Rajapaksa reads Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech as an offer of friendship. Ivan argues that it was Prabhakaran, not the Sinhala voters or the SLFP, JVP or Hela Urumaya, who decided the election, blocking Ranil Wickremesinghe’s ‘peace with traps’ in favour of a candidate of ‘pure war’, and warns of a new Gemunu–Elara war or rebellions within the south.
Prabhakaran and the Presidential Election
Victor Ivan argues that the 2005 presidential election was decided not by the Sinhala people, the SLFP, the JVP or the Hela Urumaya but by Prabhakaran, who spoke on Heroes’ Day only after the result of his decision had been announced. Reading that speech, he traces why the LTTE leader wanted Wickremesinghe beaten: the ceasefire began boldly on both sides — roadblocks lifted, the ban withdrawn, a strategic route opened, demining agreed — but the Sri Lankan government would not even press for the Washington aid summit to be held on neutral ground, and talk of a ‘safety net’ confirmed a suspicion that nets are for catching fish. Campaigning on defeating separatism, invoking the lion flag while discussing federalism, and never once appealing on behalf of the Tamil people, Wickremesinghe lost, in Ivan’s phrase, both the branch he held and the branch he stood on. Prabhakaran instead installed the man the Sinhala people had chosen as their Dutugemunu against him. Ivan runs the Dutugemunu-Elara parallel through to its limits — this Elara is the younger man and will not request a duel — and sets out the options open to him, noting the warning that this was a final notice before a decisive struggle in the coming year.
සාමය නොසලකා යුද්ධයට අත වැනීම
The country has a new President, but the search for a peaceful settlement has stalled. Rajapaksa’s win was a win of the Sinhala majority in which minorities had no share; by electing forces that would not grant the Tamils even the tsunami mechanism, the south has signalled that it will not settle the conflict by sharing power.
මහින්දගේ ජයග්රහණය
Mahinda Rajapaksa won a close contest, helped by Prabhakaran’s boycott, ending the political careers of both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga. For the first time the SLFP passes to a leader outside the Bandaranaike family; sections assess Wickremesinghe, Kumaratunga, the JVP and Prabhakaran, and predict that on the ethnic question Rajapaksa will end up on their path.
නව ජනාධිපතිවරයා
Written before the final results were declared, the editorial congratulates Mahinda Rajapaksa on a win by fewer than 200,000 votes, reminds him that a president chosen by the majority community must serve a multi-ethnic country, and asks that the loser be treated with dignity.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය ගැන සමාලෝචනයක්
Ranil Wickremesinghe faces only Mahinda Rajapaksa, but Rajapaksa faces Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga as well. His candidacy excites anti-UNP forces, though his pacts with the JVP and Hela Urumaya and the Bandaranaikes’ hostility cost him; two incalculable factors remain, Prabhakaran and Karuna.
Trends in the Presidential Contest
Three weeks from the 2005 presidential election, Victor Ivan sets out what each outcome would produce. Defeat ends the political life of whichever man suffers it, and fragments his party. A Wickremesinghe victory brings immediate dissolution and a parliamentary election that would cut the JVP and Hela Urumaya down, after which Ivan expects him to seek an SLFP coalition anyway to shield his peace programme from objection. A Rajapaksa victory requires no dissolution, since the Hela Urumaya could simply be added to the Alliance — though Ivan finds him harder to read, uncertain whether he would accommodate the JVP and Hela Urumaya or pursue an agenda of his own. He then turns to the arithmetic: the Alliance’s 45.60% in 2004 falls some 500,000 votes short of a presidential majority, and its 2004 total merely preserved what the SLFP and JVP had polled separately in 2001 rather than adding to it. The UNP’s losses since 2001 match the Jathika Hela Urumaya’s gains almost exactly, making those voters decisive. And the Tamil National Alliance vote, which nearly doubled in 2004, rests with the LTTE — which may back neither candidate, in which case turnout in the north and east will fall.