පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඇස් නොපෙනේද?
Parliament has the final responsibility for the country’s course, yet it will not even look at a case in which a citizen who sued the Chief Justice and members of the Judicial Service Commission was tried by a bench that included a respondent. Parliament should not meddle with the courts, the editorial says, but it must correct a judiciary that has stopped behaving in a civilised way.
සන්ධාන ආණ්ඩුව දුෂ්කර කඩුල්ලක් ජයගනී
With Arumugam Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress and its eight MPs on board, the alliance government has overcome its lack of a parliamentary majority. The editorial says the President’s hardest task now is to satisfy both Velupillai Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
රට මංමුළා වූ ගමනක
Like the floating rupee, the country has been left to drift. The government lacks a majority and agrees on nothing fundamental, and its talk of self-sufficiency recalls the United Front government of 1970–77. The editorial warns of a slide into full crisis.
තෝරාගත් පිරිසකට පමණක් පඩි වැඩි කරන ප්රතිපත්තිය කුමක් ද?
The government promised all public servants a 70 per cent pay rise but has raised only the salaries of appellate and Supreme Court judges, on the ground of an anomaly with High Court judges. The editorial also asks how arrears for lower-court judges were paid without Parliament approving a supplementary estimate.
Voluntary March Towards Destruction
Victor Ivan argues that neither the UPFA nor the UNP read the 2004 election result correctly: the government took a near-tie as a mandate, the opposition as a victory, when both should have read it as a demand for consensus. Parliament has sat three times since the election, spending those days on abuse and fisticuffs while costing Rs 1.9 million a day whether it meets or not. The government advertises the repeal of the Tax Amnesty Act and the compensation formula though no amending bills have been tabled, and diverts youth brigade funds without the parliamentary approval such a transfer requires. Having roused the trade unions against its predecessor, it now cannot drive back the demon it summoned; having roused the country against the Norwegian-brokered talks, it now wants negotiations in an environment of its own poisoning. Ivan holds not only politicians but intellectuals, the private sector and society at large responsible for standing aside, and expects wisdom to arrive only after the fall.
The UPFA Government’s Future
Two months after the 2004 general election the UPFA still lacks 113 seats, and Victor Ivan sets out why it may never reach them. Thondaman’s CWC is gone, the TNA route is closed by the JVP’s line on the LTTE, and the crossover rule strips defecting MPs of their seats — except the JHU’s bhikkhu MPs, who contested without a party constitution and so cannot be disciplined, though poaching them would provoke the JHU into fury. Until the government proves its majority it can do nothing else, including the new constitution the President dissolved parliament to obtain, and only fourteen months remain before the presidential election. Ivan then turns to the economy, arguing the UNF lost because ordinary people saw no dividend from peace while the business community did, and warning that the end of the garment quota system in December threatens an industry supplying 60% of export income and up to 150,000 jobs at home and in the Middle East. The JVP, he concludes, has shown a clean lifestyle but not yet the maturity its mandate demands, and its fate may prove more tragic than the traditional left’s.
Two Aspects of Political Opportunism
In this article, Victor Ivan examines the mutual political opportunism and power struggle between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe leading up to the dissolution of parliament. Ivan argues that Kumaratunga’s political strategy—including formalizing a permanent alliance with the JVP, taking over key ministries, and shrewdly calculating her election and oath dates—was driven entirely by her desire to avoid political invalidation at the end of her second term. Conversely, Wickremesinghe’s passive strategy was to defend the existing system and allow the President to serve out her terms so that she would naturally be invalidated, clearing his path to the executive presidency. This calculation ultimately prevented him from actively challenging her controversial appointments to the judiciary and the elections commission, allowing her to consolidate power.
පක්ෂ තුනක ප්රජාතන්ත්ර විරෝධී භාවිතය
A country divided by party loyalty sees only good in its own side. Ivan examines the undemocratic record of the UNP, the SLFP and the JVP, from the 1982 referendum that extended Parliament’s life, which Sirimavo Bandaranaike opposed, to their handling of the independent commissions under the 17th Amendment.
බලපොරයේ අවසානය කුමක් ද?
Voters face a third parliamentary election in four years, called not because Parliament’s term ended or the government lost its majority but because of a power struggle. The editorial argues that the conditions for a peaceful, civilised election could have been met first, and questions the practice of handing ministries across the party divide.
අධිකරණයේ කුණුවීමට වගකිවයුත්තේ කවුද?
The Thilanga Sumathipala affair, in which a magistrate heard his case on a Poya holiday and acquitted him, shows how corrupt the justice system has become. The editorial holds the Chief Justice, himself facing impeachment motions, chiefly responsible, and blames every party, the JVP included, for letting Parliament look away.