13 වැනි සංශෝධනයේ අනාගතය
The Jathika Hela Urumaya’s ministers have said they will leave the government if police and land powers are devolved, and that the Tamil people’s problems amount to food, clothing, shelter and social dignity. Ivan answers that the amendment’s value is symbolic as much as practical, and that a country which fought a merciless war and then says the Tamils are its own brothers has to show it.
13 වැනි සංශෝධනය
With the war won, the only voice still raised against the 13th Amendment is the JVP’s — a party that once killed people for supporting provincial councils, then contested them, and is now trying to rise again through them. Ivan notes that the president promised to implement the amendment fully and is doing so from a position the JVP cannot easily inflame.
ත්රස්තවාදය ජයගැනීමෙන් නොනැවතී දේශපාලන ක්රමය ජයගත යුතුය
The Western Province result leaves the government stronger after three years than when it
began, the UNP down from 39 seats to 30 and the JVP from 22 to three. Ivan argues that the
moment to press for a change in the political system is precisely when the opposition cannot
win power by ordinary means, and that the president’s own promise to abolish the executive
presidency is the lever the opposition should use.
ප්රතිවාදී නායකයන් අඟුටුමිට්ටන් බවට පත්වී ජනාධිපති යෝධයකු බවට පත්වීම
An analysis of the Sri Lankan political landscape following the 2009 provincial council elections. The article discusses how Mahinda Rajapaksa solidified his power, rendering opposition leaders like Ranil Wickremesinghe politically impotent and crippling the UNP and JVP. The author urges the President not to misuse this massive mandate like J.R. Jayewardene did, but instead use it to dismantle the corrupt political system, establish private universities, eradicate ethnic divisions, and build a truly democratic nation.
අනාගතය ගැන අලුතෙන් හිතමු
The war’s quick end is now in sight, and the largest remaining problem is how to free the civilians trapped on a small strip of land. The government has declared a no-fire zone, but the LTTE, using those people as a shield, is unlikely to let them cross into it. Once that is resolved the LTTE can only take to the jungle — and the jungle left to it, however thick, is not as large as Thoppigala. Ivan doubts a movement developed to that level can easily revert to guerrilla warfare. The end of the LTTE would widen both the country’s development space and its democratic space: resettlement, rebuilding, provincial and local elections in the north. The most contested question will be what answer is given to Tamil grievances, and it can only be answered if government and opposition work together. The country needs a large change, not a small one.
2009 වසර හා දේශපාලන අංක ගණිතය
Ivan opens 2009 expecting the global collapse to hit Sri Lanka hard. The year begins with the Golden Key crisis dragging the rest of Ceylinco’s finance companies down, tea, cinnamon and rubber in unprecedented difficulty, and smallholders who once earned well unable to live. War spending for 2009 is 177 billion rupees, and the country must fight through an economic crisis it cannot abandon the war to escape. At Kilinochchi the army advances slowly through bunds, trenches and traps, its target the LTTE’s war machine rather than territory. Meanwhile a run of court rulings against the government, above all on fuel prices, had trapped it politically — until it escaped by cutting fuel, gas and official expenses in one package worth 16 billion rupees, and put the opposition on the defensive instead. Ranil is the better mathematician; Mahinda is the better political arithmetician.
නැගෙනහිර ඡන්දය
The Eastern provincial council election is a turning point in the ethnic conflict, held in the territory the LTTE claimed while the war against it goes on. Ivan works through the demography district by district — no community holds a majority in the province — and the 2004 parliamentary results party by party, and shows why the chief ministership is the point of the dispute.
13 වැනි සංශෝධනය ක්රියාත්මක කිරීම
The government has decided to give provincial councils the full powers the 13th Amendment already allows. Ivan calls it arguable but better than doing nothing, and adds what costs nothing and is not being done either: making it possible to deal with state offices in Tamil in the north and east and in the Western and Central provinces, recruiting the staff for it, and rewarding bilingualism.
රට යන්නේ අරාජිකත්වයට ද?
JVP and SLFP local leaders in Galle are fighting over who will build the town’s bus stand: the JVP says the SLFP chief minister’s Rs 4.1 million plan could be done for Rs 500,000. Despite lamps lit together for unity, the editorial finds no unity even within the government, and every institution sliding into greater confusion while Parliament loses control of public money.
ඉදිරි පළාත් සභා මැතිවරණයේ ගමන් මග
Ivan weighs the President’s plan to test her strength in early provincial elections, comparing the 2001 parliamentary results with the later local government polls, in which the JVP fell from about a million votes to under 600,000. Recalling vote-rigging by the UNP from 1977 to 1994, the 1982 referendum and the PA’s North Western Province poll, he argues that all three main parties prefer a ‘thieves’ system’ of election plunder, and reads the President’s remarks to editors about using thuggery as a sign of a looming fight to the death.