විදුලි මිල හා ප්රශ්න
Raising the price of electricity is destructive not only to ordinary people but to manufacturers and businesses. Widening the concession from 90 units to 120 relieves ordinary households and settles nothing for industry: in ceramics and similar trades electricity is about half the cost of production, and the rise limits what some industries can compete at.
රටට වෙනස්කම් අවශ්යද?
Given how rotten the political system and state administration had become, Ivan writes, winning the separatist war should be counted a miracle — the armed forces and police included people working for the LTTE for money, which shows how far the institutions had decayed. The question now is whether to go forward with that rot or reform it. Every important part is corroded: legislature, executive, electoral system, courts, public service, public services, media. The President has accepted change is needed but has set out no philosophy beyond the voting system and cabinet size, and it is unclear whether he means to win two-thirds by agreement with the opposition or by buying its members across. Ivan lists what remains unresolved — the executive presidency, a German-style mixed electoral system, the constitutional council killed after the 17th Amendment, judicial power used oppressively, customs revenue of which perhaps a quarter reaches the treasury, and education adrift.
වේගවත් ඉදිරිගමනක් සඳහා දූෂණයට වැට බැඳිය යුතුය
Sri Lanka can only move quickly after the war if it reforms the political and institutional obstacles in its way, and cutting the cabinet to thirty-five is a start. Ivan attacks a convention he traces to J.R. Jayewardene: letting ministers and office-holders enrich themselves from the transactions of the ministries beneath them, which drains the treasury and turns politics from a matter of honour into a squalid way of making money. He questions the privileges — two vehicle permits for a six-year term when one car easily lasts six years, permits for officials who already have official cars, ministers running fleets, backup vehicles for bodyguards now the war is over. Corruption is not confined to politics: Customs collects perhaps a quarter of what it should, and Inland Revenue, Motor Traffic and Excise are no different. Information technology could triple that revenue at modest cost.
පරිගණක මගඩිය ඇත්තක්ද?
The official result gave Rajapaksa 6,015,934 votes to Fonseka’s 4,173,185 — a margin above 1.8 million. Fonseka and the JVP say that figure was manufactured by the Elections Secretariat’s computer unit rather than summed from the counting centres, and some UNP spokesmen agree, but none has proved it. The signed centre reports are in the hands of party organisers in every seat; comparing a sample against the declared total would take three or four hours. That nobody has done so suggests the claim is untrue. Reports of opposition agents being driven from counting centres cover fewer than ten places, and around eighty officials staff each one — too many to suborn, and the ballots are already marked. The Elections Commissioner is also at fault for not explaining publicly how the count and final tally were conducted.
මැතිවරණ ප්රතිඵලය ගැන විවාදය
Opposition leaders claim the declared result was manufactured by the computer unit at the Elections Secretariat rather than summed from the counting centres. Ivan sets out how counting actually works — three stages, roughly eighty officers per centre, party agents present throughout, signed reports in six copies with one posted on the hall noticeboard and one handed to each candidate’s agent, results phoned to headquarters and confirmed back by the Commissioner before being faxed in writing. Any discrepancy between the centre reports and the official figure could be proved in hours, not months. He then checks: UNP organisers in Kesbewa, Moratuwa, Mawanella, Matara and Yatinuwara all report their centre documents matching the declared result, and Sajith Premadasa says the same of Hambantota. Kabir Hashim put a ten-rupee note in every ballot box in Mawanella and found them all at the count. Rather than trying to falsify the public’s genuine preference, Ivan argues, the opposition should ask why it existed.
විය යුත්තේ කුමක්ද?
Two days before the poll, Ivan states plainly that he does not want Fonseka to win — not because Rajapaksa’s administration deserves protection, but because a change driven by hatred rather than a vision would leave the country in disorder, and anarchy is worse than bad government. Defeat would not finish Fonseka: he would become opposition leader and could acquire the political schooling he lacks, having entered politics straight from the battlefield and now flying on wings borrowed from two other parties. Ivan argues the opposition’s deeper failure is squandering parliament’s committee system, where members sign the attendance sheet for the allowance and leave, breaking quorum and sending summoned officials home with their files unopened. He sets out what Rajapaksa must change: shed the relatives beyond Chamal, Gotabaya and Basil, build an anti-corruption commission on the Hong Kong model, and stop overriding the independent commissions.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය නිදහස් හා සාධාරණ විය යුතුය
The presidential election decides state power, and it is being held without an elections commission, with all its powers resting in one commissioner. Ivan lists what a fair contest requires — the opposition left to campaign unobstructed, its supporters not intimidated — and reminds both sides that winner and loser have to live in the same country afterwards.
ජෙනරාල්ගේ ආරක්ෂාව
Fonseka’s fundamental rights petition says he had six hundred guards, ten escort vehicles and two bulletproof cars as Chief of Defence Staff, and a fraction of that as a candidate. Ivan says he should have proper protection both as the commander who won the war and as the main challenger — and then turns the numbers round to ask what a cabinet of more than a hundred is costing the army in men.
වැඩවර්ජනවල සාධාරණත්වය!
The right to strike is a fundamental trade union right, Ivan writes, but it is a weapon to be used with social responsibility and at a decisive moment, not for narrow party ends. He reads the work-to-rule at petroleum, electricity and the ports as a campaign run through union structures for the coming election, and asks why parties confident of winning in January will not simply wait and settle the wage claims themselves.
සරල දේශපාලනයෙන් ඔබ්බට සිතීම
Every outlet but one spoke with a single voice over the Malabe abduction, and Ivan credits that with the arrests that followed. He turns to a pattern in the reporting of the suicide attacks — on Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, on the president, on Sarath Fonseka — in which the bomber was brought to the place by someone inside, and asks whether the parties can think past defeating each other.