සෝමවංශ අමරසිංහ ජවිපෙ රැගෙන යන්නේ කොයිබටද?
Ivan questions Somawansa Amarasinghe’s fitness to lead the JVP. He recounts Amarasinghe’s arrest in the botched 1971 plan to seize Sirimavo Bandaranaike and his switch from anti- to pro-Wijeweera views in prison, and cites Vas Tillekeratne’s statement on Iraqi funding. He asks how Amarasinghe alone escaped in 1989, possibly helped by his relative Sirisena Cooray, notes the JVP’s shifts towards the PA, and criticises a leadership drawn from his home district of Kalutara.
සමසමාජ මග හා ජවිපෙ මග
The piece compares the JVP’s ‘probationary’ pact with Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government in 2001 with the LSSP’s 1964 coalition with Sirimavo Bandaranaike. It sets out the LSSP’s internal debate, the talents of its leaders such as N.M. Perera, and its ideological fit with the SLFP, and contrasts these with the JVP’s lack of debate and weak rationale. Both governments, it notes, then fell to parliamentary defections, in 1964 over the Press Bill.
තරමක් අංගවිකලයි ඒත් නරකම නෑ
Ivan welcomes the 17th Amendment but lists its flaws: no public debate, no published draft, brief review by a three-judge bench, and passage without a final draft before Parliament. He faults the UNP’s weak first draft and lack of vigilance, credits the JVP for securing the reform but says it accepted a presidential nominee on the Constitutional Council and backed Jayampathy Wickramaratne’s plan to drop Mark Fernando and A.R.B. Amerasinghe from the Judicial Service Commission. The government, he says, kept the council, the Chief Justice and state media within its reach.
A test for JVP’s sincerity
The probationary programme agreed between the PA and the JVP will be decisive for both the PA and the UNP, and more decisive still for the JVP — because everything it does in this period will show its political maturity, its capacity to act on firm principle, and its honesty.
පෙරමුණේ අවංකභාවය උරගා බැලෙන පරික්ෂණයක්
Ivan calls the JVP–PA probation pact a test of the JVP’s maturity and honesty. Its claimed gains are hollow: the referendum was dropped because of public protest, and Parliament was brought forward only a day, perhaps because astrologers deemed the 7th inauspicious. Quoting the PA’s 1994 manifesto, he shows the pledge of 20 ministers covered all ministers, and warns that the pact’s ‘mutually agreed amendments’, a presidential nominee on the Constitutional Council and resistance to reviewing office-holders could deform the 17th Amendment.
රවට්ටන්න යන්නේ කාවද?
The politicisation of institutions that should be independent is a main cause of the country’s decline, and the 17th Amendment was meant to hand key appointments to a respected Constitutional Council. The editorial notes that the opposition draft provided for eight members, including five eminent persons chosen jointly by the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, but the government, backed by the JVP, now proposes seven members including a presidential nominee, giving it a majority. This, it says, merely dresses up the old system.
17 වැනි ව්යවස්ථා සංශෝධනය
Ivan welcomes the JVP–PA agreement to enact the 17th Amendment’s Constitutional Council and four independent commissions by 24 September, and describes the council’s makeup and the fourteen offices it would fill. He lists further posts that should come under it, faults the draft for leaving current office-holders in place and for having no complaints procedure, and says the Bribery Commission, the Auditor General, the Attorney General and the Elections Commissioner must be held to redefined duties.
Pitfalls of probationary Govt.
Will the JVP, which is trying to supply oxygen to a weak government, get what it is asking for, the five independent commissions among it? The probationary programme has good things in it and things that could make the crisis worse.
පරිවාස වැඩපිළිවෙළ කෝකටත් තෛලයක් නොවේ
The editorial says the country now has a People’s Alliance government steered by the JVP: the bottle is Chandrika’s but the wine is the JVP’s. If the JVP’s probation programme at least secures the five independent commissions, an idea that came from civil society, that is a gain. But as a pact between only two parties, it cannot resolve the economic collapse, the war, political instability or the politics of hatred, and its benefits will be temporary.
ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ පරිවාස වැඩපිළිවෙළ
Ivan questions whether the JVP can win the five independent commissions by giving oxygen to a dying People’s Alliance government. He recalls its seats on the rigged North Western Provincial Council and support for PA provincial administrations, and gives the numbers: the government fell from a majority to 109 against 115 after Rauff Hakeem’s group left, and JVP support brings it back to 119. He argues that the pact’s ban on peace talks, privatisation and price rises clashes with the IMF standby agreement and risks another LTTE attack like Katunayake.