මහින්ද රනිල් පොරය
In this political system the ruler and the leader of the opposition can survive only by destabilising each other, Ivan writes, and the system has decayed far enough that each attempt weakens both. He reads Ranil Wickremesinghe waiting to be chosen as the next saviour and Mahinda Rajapaksa waiting on the war, and says both are prisoners of the same corrupt arrangement.
Defeating Mr. President All But Impossible
Despite corruption, rights abuses, nepotism and rising prices, Ivan argues that President Rajapaksa is almost impossible to unseat before the presidential election of 2011. The UNP can defeat the budget only with the JVP, which gains too much from the government to risk it, and the rules of the system favour the President over the opposition.
A Cancerous Carnival
Starting from ministers’ housing and fuel allowances, Ivan tallies the cost of keeping politicians: vehicles, pensions, duty-free cars and an over-large cabinet. He traces how Colvin R. de Silva and J.R. Jayewardene concentrated power, and how presidents came to buy loyalty with public funds while black-money barons shape governments.
චන්ද්රිකාගේ ජනාධිපති සමය
A critical assessment of Chandrika Kumaratunga’s presidency: her half-hearted support for Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Cabinet decision to give her land beside Parliament, property dealings in Britain and France, her failure ever to declare her assets, her habits in office, her handling of the peace process and the ‘war for peace’, tenders and procurement favouring friends, and the argument that a president can have no immunity for crimes against humanity.
ලැජ්ජා නැතිකමේ දේශපාලනය
Even after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election, Chandrika Kumaratunga will not give up the party leadership, and Ranil Wickremesinghe clings to his despite telling friends he would quit. Ivan recounts what a CID officer told him in confidence during the terror that followed the 1999 election, and ends by wishing that she not be jailed and made to suffer for what was done in her eleven years of rule.
විශ්රාම යන හැම ජනාධිපතිවරයෙක් ම පරික්ෂාවට ලක්විය යුතු ය
Ravaya explains its decision to go to court against the special privileges planned for former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and on other matters. Because presidential immunity prevents scrutiny in office, it argues, retiring presidents must be examined; it recalls its long pursuit of her assets declarations, her children’s foreign education and the President’s Fund.
කැත කුණු තවරාගත් සුදු නෙළුම
Ivan recalls a private celebration at Temple Trees after the 1994 election, and Chandrika Kumaratunga’s repeated public claims of personal purity, including that she never stole a cent, and sets them against the record. He argues that had Ranil Wickremesinghe treated her as he treated Anuruddha Ratwatte, things might have turned out differently.
ඉතින් මැතිනියනි ඔබට ආයුබෝවන්
The worst story about Chandrika Kumaratunga’s honesty came from Le Monde’s Delhi correspondent, puzzled by the degrees listed in her official biography after 1994. Ivan then recalls the impeachment plan of 1991, in which all three main actors lived in dream worlds, and how the exposure of the Suriyakanda mass graves brought the rising Kumaratunga great fame.
ඉතින් මැතිනියනි ඔබට ආයුබෝවන්
Ivan explains that he decided after the 1999 election to write a book on his experience of Chandrika Kumaratunga before she lost power, and that some critics credit him with helping to create the conditions for her rise. He begins with stories that cast doubt on her honesty, including one told at a pearl jewellery fair and one from Le Monde’s Delhi correspondent.
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.