Recreating the State
Answering the response to ‘End of an era’, Victor Ivan sets out the changes themselves — an itemised programme for rebuilding the state, from investigating the presidents to regulating the broadcasters.
End of an era
The state the British handed over in 1948 has finished collapsing, Victor Ivan writes. Elections now decide not only who governs but who gets to plunder — and the era that began at independence ends in 2020.
Comprehending the puzzles of 19th and 20th Amendments
Both amendments are pickpockets, Victor Ivan writes — one in democratic dress, one in a dictator’s robe. What neither touches is the president’s licence to treat public property as his own.
Seducing the Parliament
How Parliament was bought: Victor Ivan traces the estates, contracts and licences J.R. Jayewardene handed his MPs, and asks whether the new House will break the silence its predecessors kept.
Recreation of the State
The promised remedy: Victor Ivan’s blueprint for rebuilding the state — a judiciary with the power of judicial review, a reformed legislature and executive, and an end to the plunder of public property.
Sri Lanka: Out of the frying pan into the fire
Seventy-two years in four phases, each worse than the last. Victor Ivan totals the debt against government revenue and argues the country has passed from the frying pan into the fire.
Parliamentary Election and anarchy
Behind the carnival of a parliamentary election, Victor Ivan sees anarchy: soldiers doing police work, a constitution honoured informally, and a central bank robbed with no one held to account.
The reality of the system
Duty-free permits, super-grade vehicles and an assets law with two open loopholes. Victor Ivan uses the perks of Parliament to show how the system really works — including his own part in prising the declarations open.
Degeneration of Parliament exposed
From the old house at Galle Face to the complex at Kotte: Victor Ivan argues that a Parliament whose members trade with the government they audit has forfeited its own legality.
The vicious cycle of revenge
Each government jails the last one’s ministers and is jailed in turn. Victor Ivan calls it a tribal inheritance — a cycle of revenge that has replaced accountability and now protects everyone from investigation.