මහින්දගේ ජයග්රහණය
Mahinda Rajapaksa won a close contest, helped by Prabhakaran’s boycott, ending the political careers of both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga. For the first time the SLFP passes to a leader outside the Bandaranaike family; sections assess Wickremesinghe, Kumaratunga, the JVP and Prabhakaran, and predict that on the ethnic question Rajapaksa will end up on their path.
Trends in the Presidential Contest
Three weeks from the 2005 presidential election, Victor Ivan sets out what each outcome would produce. Defeat ends the political life of whichever man suffers it, and fragments his party. A Wickremesinghe victory brings immediate dissolution and a parliamentary election that would cut the JVP and Hela Urumaya down, after which Ivan expects him to seek an SLFP coalition anyway to shield his peace programme from objection. A Rajapaksa victory requires no dissolution, since the Hela Urumaya could simply be added to the Alliance — though Ivan finds him harder to read, uncertain whether he would accommodate the JVP and Hela Urumaya or pursue an agenda of his own. He then turns to the arithmetic: the Alliance’s 45.60% in 2004 falls some 500,000 votes short of a presidential majority, and its 2004 total merely preserved what the SLFP and JVP had polled separately in 2001 rather than adding to it. The UNP’s losses since 2001 match the Jathika Hela Urumaya’s gains almost exactly, making those voters decisive. And the Tamil National Alliance vote, which nearly doubled in 2004, rests with the LTTE — which may back neither candidate, in which case turnout in the north and east will fall.
ජනාධිපතිවරණයේ ප්රවණතා
With three weeks to go, Ivan argues that the winner’s side will stay dominant for a long time. If Ranil Wickremesinghe loses, his career ends and the UNP splits; if Mahinda Rajapaksa wins, he will want an early parliamentary election to weaken the JVP and the Hela Urumaya; and it is unclear what the LTTE will do with the Tamil vote.
මහින්ද-වීරවංශ දීගය හරි යයිද?
Back from Japan, the President did not quarrel with Mahinda Rajapaksa but backed his candidacy, leaving herself room for a later return. Mahinda is now in a bind: saying yes to the JVP’s conditions will cost him some of the forces gathering around him.
විමල් වීරවංශ හා ඇටි කෙහෙල්
Like the civet in the saying who ate a seeded banana, the JVP tried to swallow the SLFP and cannot digest it; now it can only hang on Mahinda Rajapaksa’s neck, and Wimal Weerawansa says any deal will be with Mahinda, not the SLFP.
අගවිනිසුරුගේ මාළු බෑම
The latest fish on the Chief Justice’s hook is the ‘red fish’, the JVP. The note describes how he baits each hook to the taste of the fish he means to catch, and suggests even the revolutionary Wimal Weerawansa could not resist the charms of the ‘mermaid’ on the mobile phone.
සුනාමි ආධාර අගමැති හා ජවිපෙ
Mismanaging a disaster that killed nearly 40,000 and displaced close to a million could bring a political tsunami. The Prime Minister’s report to Cabinet puts tsunami aid received at Rs 113,262,539 without saying from whom; the editorial says he, the JVP and every other party that collected aid should account for it.
ජවිපෙ කොෆි අන්නන්ගේ පිහිට පැතීම
Out of government, the JVP has not raised its voice; it says it will go to court against the tsunami mechanism and complain to the UN. The editorial asks why, if that was the best way, it staged a fast unto death, and argues that if a parliamentary election comes first its plans will collapse, though a new SLFP pact on SLFP terms remains possible.
ජවිපෙ මල්ලිලා හා අගවිනිසුරු
The Chief Justice took up the JVP’s and the Hela Urumaya’s fundamental rights petitions against the tsunami management structure filed on 5 July. A second note, ‘S.B. cries for freedom’, finds S.B. Dissanayake in the Merchant ward expecting release at any moment and blaming Bribery Commission Director-General Piyasena Ranasinghe for his troubles.
දාර්ශනික මාක්ස් හා දේශපාලනික මාක්ස්
A reply to Sumanasiri, who holds that Marx the philosopher is not dead. Ivan grants that the world Marx hoped for is more beautiful than liberal democracy, but separates the philosopher from the politician. Drawing on Dmitri Volkogonov’s biographies of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, drawn from the opened Soviet archives, he argues that attempts to build Marx’s world produced tyranny, likens Pol Pot, Wijeweera and Prabhakaran to those figures, and concludes that capitalism cannot be replaced and must be reformed through liberal democracy, his preferred model being Gandhi’s India.