A game of switching friends and foes
The PA government is in political uncertainty. With a UNP no-confidence motion gathering momentum it has become suspicious not only of its enemies but of its allies, and appears to have lost the capacity to look at anything calmly or logically.
පුද්ගලිකකරණය හා විගණකාධිපතිගේ වගකීම
Employees protest the sale of 51 per cent of the National Insurance Corporation, with life funds over Rs. 1,800 million, to Janashakthi for about Rs. 490 million. The editorial says privatisation has become a source of illicit wealth under both UNP and PA, notes that the Public Enterprises Commission misled COPE over Air Lanka, and calls on the Auditor General to examine all privatisation deals and report to Parliament.
Ensuring healthy peace talks
After the failure of Agni Khiela the government has had to soften the hard conditions it set for starting talks. It now enters negotiations from weakness rather than strength, and the talks are likelier to deepen its crisis than to steady it.
කුණාටුව තවමත් අවසන් වී නැත
Ivan argues that the UNP revolt, though it did not unseat Ranil Wickremesinghe, curbed his autocratic leadership, raised internal democracy and forced him to promise to step aside if he obstructed an all-party government. Neither the PA nor the JVP wanted a change of UNP leader. With no outside support and a slender majority, the government could fall on a handful of defections, and Parliament, which controls law and money, could then reform the whole system.
Importance of democracy within a party
There is a real discussion in the country about broadening democratic freedom and the reforms it needs, and almost all of it is about how to reform the state. The parties, which are the state’s main instrument, are doing nothing to strengthen democracy inside themselves.
රනිල්ගේ අනාගතය
After the failed budget vote, Ivan argues that most UNP MPs now believe the party needs new leadership to defeat the government and form an all-party interim administration, with Karu Jayasuriya as Opposition Leader and Gamini Atukorale as party leader. He traces Wickremesinghe’s weakness to his rapid rise after the assassinations, distrust of seniors and Gamini Dissanayake’s supporters, and soft opposition, and urges him at least to give up the Opposition leadership.
රනිල් විරෝධී කුණාටුව
Ivan gives a detailed account of the UNP revolt against Ranil Wickremesinghe after a plan to defeat the budget, with Thondaman’s four votes and defectors from the People’s Alliance, collapsed at midnight. Thondaman later said he was never asked. The piece follows the group of 23 MPs led by Gamini Atukorale, Karu Jayasuriya and Rajitha Senaratne, their demand that Jayasuriya become Opposition Leader, the seven-member committee Wickremesinghe appointed, and his delay over impeaching the Chief Justice.
ජනාධිපති අරමුදල හා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told Parliament that the President’s Fund need not table accounts because it receives nothing from the Consolidated Fund. The editorial calls this misleading: the Act subjects the fund to audit and parliamentary scrutiny, it has not been audited since 1995, and it is fed by state lotteries worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 million a year, comparable to Samurdhi or war capital spending. It traces the fund to J.R. Jayewardene and recalls an incomplete list of beneficiaries given to Sarath Kongahage.
Ranil’s dilemma: Party or himself
The government avoided defeat on the budget without finding out who was adding to the four members of Thondaman’s group who had agreed to vote it down, and without uniting its own ranks against a repeat. The instability that produced is the setting for a question about the opposition leader.
President’s Fund draws instant money
The Prime Minister has told parliament that the President’s Fund need not table its accounts because no money is allocated to it from the consolidated fund. That statement misled parliament and the public both, and will feed the doubts people already have about the fund.