අද්විතීය බවේ උභතෝකෝටිකය
The government expects a large win in the south, where its base is, but the south is also the most critical province in the country and the uncritical loyalty of six months ago has gone. Ivan sets the president’s standing beside Sarath Fonseka’s — a man made equally singular by the same victory, for whom no office in the country was large enough — and notes how much local politicians’ cut-outs are costing the government in public patience.
විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය ගැන තවදුරටත්
Ranil Wickremesinghe has written an affectionate essay for J.R. Jayewardene’s 103rd birthday while his party’s official position is that Jayewardene’s creation should be abolished. Ivan takes the essay apart against the record — the referendum, the pardon of Gonawala Sunil, the 1982 district council election run by the ruling party rather than the commissioner, and a bribery commission that in thirty years has convicted nobody.
යුද්ධය ජයගැනීමෙන් පමණක් රටට ඉදිරියට යා හැකිද?
The victory opened a space the country has not used well. Ivan grants the president the larger share of the credit and then turns to the West’s changed policy, to the covenant on civil and political rights the country has signed, and to Vietnam — which defeated a great power militarily and then spent decades as one of the poorest countries on earth. Jayewardene, he ends, made a hat to fit his own head; Rajapaksa’s task is to make one that fits the country’s.
විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය අවශ්‍ය නම් එය ප්‍රතිසංවිධානය කළ යුතුය
A change to the system can only be had if government and opposition both want it for its own sake rather than as a way of unseating each other. Ivan sets the American presidency against the Sri Lankan one point by point — an electoral college rather than a direct vote, no power to dissolve the legislature or to call an early election, an impeachment that can actually remove — and argues that ours was written so that none of those checks bite.
දේශපාලන ක්‍රමයේ වෙනසක් අත්‍යවශ්‍යය
With the UNP now for abolishing the executive presidency and the JVP back to its old position, Ivan turns to how a constitution should be made rather than what it should say. Taking the failures of 1972 and 1977 as the warning, he sets out the conditions: not done in haste, not built around the ruling party’s convenience, everyone who should be at the table actually there.
දේශපාලන ක්‍රමයේ වෙනසකට කාලය පැමිණ තිබේ
Forty thousand of the displaced have been resettled and the government means to finish in 180 days. Ivan asks that the camps at least be opened to members of parliament — nothing the state does should lie outside their oversight — and argues that with three elections ahead, the country is waiting for a change in the system rather than a change of government.
මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂගේ හතර අවුරුද්ද
The president may call an election as soon as four years of his term are done — a power added to the constitution by amendment for the benefit of the incumbent and now enjoyed by all of them. Ivan takes stock of the four years: the LTTE gone with not even a ghost of Prabhakaran left, the whole territory in the state’s hands, and the question of whether the respect of opponents as well as supporters can be won.
ක්‍රෙඩිට් කාඩ්වලින් පරෙස්සම්වන්න!
Credit cards are being issued against nothing but a salary slip, and Ivan works through what the interest actually costs the holder who misses the 55-day window. He moves from there to the presidential term and the argument over abolishing the executive presidency, to the displaced, and to the retired chief justice’s habit of delivering popular judgments to rebuild a reputation he might have run on.
ආණ්ඩුව හා විරුද්ධ පක්ෂය දෙපැත්තට ඇදීම
The government fought the war as a single-handed act and attacked the opposition through it;
the opposition worked to obstruct the war, likened it to Hitler’s, and sought to cut off
aid. Ivan traces the habit to the system J.R. Jayewardene built to keep an opposition
permanently out of power, follows it through the SLFP’s own years in the wilderness and its
quiet satisfaction at the JVP’s revolt, and ends by asking which matters more to either
side, the party or the country.
ත්‍රස්තවාදය ජයගැනීමෙන් නොනැවතී දේශපාලන ක්‍රමය ජයගත යුතුය
The Western Province result leaves the government stronger after three years than when it
began, the UNP down from 39 seats to 30 and the JVP from 22 to three. Ivan argues that the
moment to press for a change in the political system is precisely when the opposition cannot
win power by ordinary means, and that the president’s own promise to abolish the executive
presidency is the lever the opposition should use.