අඬමුද? සිනාසෙමුද?
This article critically examines the controversial tenure and actions of former Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva, detailing his abuse of judicial power for personal and political gain. It outlines his role in imprisoning S.B. Dissanayake to appease President Chandrika Kumaratunga, his subsequent legal betrayal of Kumaratunga following a personal insult regarding his behavior toward women, and his intimidation of treasury officials to secure an abnormally high pension. The author also provides a detailed investigative account of a 2004 incident near Diyawanna Oya, where police allegedly found the Chief Justice half-naked in a parked vehicle with a woman, using the cover-up of this event to highlight the systemic corruption and apathy within Sri Lanka’s political, parliamentary, and judicial systems.
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.
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.
Does Prabhakaran have an answer?
Victor Ivan reads Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech as a shrewd account of southern politics. The LTTE leader traces the breakdown back to Washington, where the UNP’s participation in the aid conference denied his organisation equal-partner status; he rejects every interim administration draft the government produced, insists talks resume on the LTTE’s own ISGA proposals, and refuses to see an interim authority tied to a final settlement — suspecting the President of wanting to please the JVP, mislead the international community, or simply prolong matters indefinitely. He then challenges every southern party to state publicly where it stands on territory, nationhood and self-determination, and warns that Tamil patience has limits. Ivan judges the ball now in Sinhala hands and finds none of them willing to hold it: Wickremesinghe wanting the talks to last until he is President, the President subordinating the ethnic question to her own invalidation problem, and neither able to move without the JVP’s consent. He closes with a warning that the Sinhala people may come to detest their own leaders enough to say Prabhakaran is good for us too.
When must the Presidential Election be held?
Was Chandrika Kumaratunga’s second term due to end in December 2005 or December 2006? Victor Ivan works through the constitutional arithmetic. G.L. Peiris holds that the public oath of 22 December 1999 governs, making the election due in 2005; Mangala Samaraweera replies that a two-term president is entitled to twelve years, placing it in 2006 and resting on an oath the President is said to have taken in secret on 12 November 2000. Ivan tests the twelve-year claim against J.R. Jayewardene, who served two terms and got eleven: having gone to the country early in October 1982, he took his second oath in February 1983 and lost a year. Article 31(3A)(d), quoted in full, sets the term from the date of the oath. He then explains why she took the December oath at all — after the bomb attack on her campaign, her advisers invoked the doctrine of necessity so that her death would not force a fresh election, an insurance that has since become a liability. A secret oath cannot invalidate a public one, he concludes, and any attempt to make it do so will bring on another crisis.
Alliance Government Crosses A Difficult Hurdle
Thondaman’s CWC has brought eight MPs to the Alliance, and with three from the SLMC and one JHU monk the government reaches 118 — enough to govern, but thirty-two short of what the President actually wants. Victor Ivan credits her nerve: she dissolved a parliament the UNP controlled, broke her promise to the Speaker, allied with the JVP at the risk of her own party, and won a gamble that had her survival at stake, while the leader of the opposition remained in a world of his dreams. Her remaining aim is to avoid invalidation at the end of her second term, and Ivan judges that despite her stated preference for abolishing the executive presidency she will instead seek to amend it to permit three terms — a course she can justify to the minorities, to her own party and to the JVP in turn. The arithmetic runs through Prabhakaran: satisfying him on the ISGA delivers the TNA’s twenty-two MPs and brings a two-thirds majority within ten UNP defections. The difficulty is pleasing Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
Two Aspects of Political Opportunism
In this article, Victor Ivan examines the mutual political opportunism and power struggle between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe leading up to the dissolution of parliament. Ivan argues that Kumaratunga’s political strategy—including formalizing a permanent alliance with the JVP, taking over key ministries, and shrewdly calculating her election and oath dates—was driven entirely by her desire to avoid political invalidation at the end of her second term. Conversely, Wickremesinghe’s passive strategy was to defend the existing system and allow the President to serve out her terms so that she would naturally be invalidated, clearing his path to the executive presidency. This calculation ultimately prevented him from actively challenging her controversial appointments to the judiciary and the elections commission, allowing her to consolidate power.
Towards A Solution
In this article, Victor Ivan analyzes the constitutional deadlock resulting from President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s takeover of three cabinet ministries, arguing that the crisis stems from structural flaws in a system where executive power and parliamentary control belong to opposing parties. Ivan critiques Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for attempting to sideline the Executive President and leveraging the peace process primarily to fuel his own 2005 presidential ambitions. The author notes the irony in the President now calling for independent commissions and state media oversight—reforms the Prime Minister failed to enact earlier—while demanding an equal seat at the table in peace negotiations. Ultimately, Ivan asserts that the only way to avert national catastrophe is to establish a bipartisan power-sharing agreement that includes the President in decision-making on peace.
What must happen
In this article, Victor Ivan addresses the major constitutional crisis triggered by President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s unilateral takeover of three key government ministries—including the Defense Ministry—while Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was abroad. Ivan characterizes the President’s actions as an immoral, well-planned “constitutional coup,” while simultaneously criticizing the Prime Minister and cabinet for sabotaging political co-habitation by attempting to marginalize the President while willingly cooperating with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Warning that the deadlock threatens both the national economy and the peace process, Ivan asserts that the crisis cannot be solved through street protests or snap elections. Instead, he argues that the crisis must serve as a catalyst for a bipartisan agreement on structural constitutional reforms, electoral changes, and the revitalization of independent commissions.
How will the struggle for power end?
In this article, Victor Ivan analyzes the escalating power struggle between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Facing the end of her term and unable to contest the next presidential election, the President seeks to overhaul the executive presidency to secure her continued political dominance, potentially by aligning with the JVP or utilizing Parliament as a constituent assembly. Conversely, the Prime Minister is determined to preserve the current system to claim the executive presidency for himself, plotting to render the President politically irrelevant. Ivan warns that this clash of ambitions, coupled with a lack of faith in the impartiality of the judiciary under Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva, risks plunging the nation into an extra-constitutional crisis and potential civil conflict.