The Third Reading of the Budget: What might happen?
After the government survived the second reading of the 2008 budget, Ivan weighs the UNP’s chances of defeating it at the third. He argues that even a defeat would not force a dissolution, that MPs want to finish their terms, and that party leaders should stop fighting over a rotten system and agree to change it.
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.
The Travails of School and Free Education
The dispute over admissions to grade one sets the Supreme Court against the Education Ministry and Parliament. Ivan follows the fundamental rights petitions, the court’s own marking guidelines, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s privilege complaint and the part played by past pupils’ associations, and warns that the result will leave admissions in lasting disorder.
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.
ජනතාවට පොත පෙරළීම
Chandrika Kumaratunga has had her biography written by a well-known biographer, with the publisher’s US$40,000 fee paid by the Ports Authority under Mangala Samaraweera and launches planned from Oslo to Berlin at public expense. Ivan traces the practice to J.R. Jayewardene, then turns to a heartless Parliament and the coming Supreme Court interpretation, noting that everyone has suffered at the Chief Justice’s hands except the President.
ජවිපෙ මන්ත්රීකම් අහිමි කිරීම
Three notes. The President has asked her lawyers whether JVP MPs can be unseated for breaching alliance discipline, though the government, with JVP support, has used the Chief Justice to protect MPs who crossed to it; whispers of a third impeachment motion against the Chief Justice; and a bouquet for Seylan Bank’s decision to help tsunami-hit businesses inside the 100-metre zone.
The Joint Mechanism and the Coming Political Crisis
Having promised the Kandy aid conference she would sign the joint mechanism for tsunami relief in the north-east regardless of extremist pressure, the President has been called. The JVP, under internal pressure that has made the issue one of survival and dignity, has resolved to quit the government if she signs. Victor Ivan sets out the arithmetic: the JVP’s departure costs 39 seats, the Hela Urumaya’s likely departure another nine, and the Tamil Alliance’s 22 do not cover the gap. Refusing to sign preserves the government but damages her standing internationally, in her party and among the people. Her alternatives are a coalition with a UNP leader who will not strengthen her hand, inducing a large group of UNP MPs to defect — for whom, Ivan notes, she could probably secure judicial protection through the Chief Justice — or dissolving parliament, possibly resigning the presidency and contesting as prime ministerial candidate herself. He judges a parliamentary election would hurt the JVP and Hela Urumaya most, and warns that whichever course she takes the turmoil will not end soon, still less if the LTTE abandons the ceasefire.
නීතියේ පාලනයක් නැති අරාජික රටක්
The train and bus collision at Yangalmodara was no accident of chance: the roads were run in a way that invited it. The editorial finds the same lawlessness everywhere, from a head of state and an opposition leader who do not respect the law to MPs selling duty-free cars, and says the rule of law will come only when it is applied to the sharks, not the sprats.
අනුරගේ අපහාසය
Contempt complaints are becoming fashionable: UNP MP Johnston Fernando has petitioned the Supreme Court over Anura Bandaranaike’s remarks on the S.B. Dissanayake case. The note points out that the UNP leader decries contempt prosecutions while his own MP files one.
බහු පක්ෂ ක්රමයට රතු එළියක්: විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ මර නින්දේ
On the day of the alliance’s first budget, UNP MP Rohitha Bogollagama crossed over and was made a minister. Ivan explains how the law on crossovers is being bent to reach 113 seats, what the government plans for the Speaker and the constitution once it has them, and why the JVP’s ‘red democracy’ is the main prop of the scheme while the opposition sleeps.