The presidency and the dilemma of the Presidential Election
J.R. Jayewardene built the presidency to make himself a king; the 19th Amendment hollowed it out but left the crown on. Victor Ivan reads the 2019 field — Gotabaya, the UNP’s impasse, the JVP — against that comedy.
What is happening?
The patient needs surgery and the doctors are discussing the election. Victor Ivan sets out what the next president will and will not be able to do, and why the contest itself is in crisis.
Crisis of the Constitution
The 19th Amendment stripped the president of executive power but left him elected as though he still held it. Victor Ivan calls the result a country without a working constitution — and warns against going to the polls before fixing it.
Roots of bribery and corruption
Corruption in Sri Lanka is not a failure of individual character but a system built deliberately, Victor Ivan argues — traced here from J.R. Jayewardene’s admiration for Napoleon to the party machinery that now depends on it.
The present crisis is likely to end up in a serious disaster
Sirisena has sacked one Prime Minister, sworn in another and moved to dissolve Parliament using powers the 19th Amendment took away from him. Victor Ivan argues the courts alone cannot arrest what follows.
ජනාධිපතික්රමය ගැන නගන පුහු තර්ක
As one uncivilised era nears its end, Ivan answers those who still defend the presidency. Israel and India, he shows, keep a nominal president under a parliamentary system, and India’s model of devolution works within it. He describes how the old parliamentary system made MPs answerable and governments changeable, how the 1978 presidency reduced Parliament, and how violence has been bound up with the presidential system from its start, arguing that the electoral system must change too.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය, සුභ නැකත හා පාප්වහන්සේගේ සංචාරය
Ivan argues that the Eighteenth Amendment, poorly drafted, did not remove the two-term bar in a way that clearly lets the President stand again, and that a law-abiding leader would seek the Supreme Court’s opinion rather than rely on a friendly ruling. He criticises plans to time the election by an astrologer’s auspicious date despite the Pope’s planned visit in January 2015, and examines the history of presidential nominations and the Commissioner of Elections’ role.
සෝභිත හිමිගේ ප්රවේශය
Ivan assesses the campaign led by the Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha to abolish the executive presidency through a common candidate. He cites two indicators of institutional collapse, a former Chief Justice’s estimate and the substandard-cement case, and sets out six reservations: it seeks limited amendment rather than a full new constitution, ties everything to one election, and depends on a candidate. He then lists steps the opposition, especially the UNP, must take to correct course.
අශීලාචාර 18 පරාජය කිරීම
Following up the previous column, Ivan tests Sarath Silva’s argument against the constitution. Transitional provisions in Chapter XXI of the 1978 constitution, including Article 160, show how J.R. Jayewardene was specially made eligible, and the Eighteenth Amendment, rushed through on the wave of war victory, has a technical flaw that is not easily corrected. Seeking a favourable ruling from the Supreme Court would put the judges in a trap; opposing injustice is a human duty, and all who want change should unite to defeat the Eighteenth.
සරත් සිල්වාගේ කාල බෝම්බය
Ivan, no admirer of Sarath N. Silva, nevertheless takes seriously the former Chief Justice’s argument that Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot contest a third term. Silva’s thesis, set out in nine points, is that the Eighteenth Amendment, passed in 2010 after Rajapaksa had already been sworn in for his second term, cannot give him a right to a third term that he did not have when re-elected. Ivan compares term limits under presidential systems in France, Brazil and elsewhere and argues that what matters is honouring the people’s sovereignty.