රට අවුලට යවා බලය අල්ලා ගැනීමට සිහින දැකීම
The JVP is once again pushing the country towards ruin, Ivan writes, and it is using the formula of 1971 — frighten the villages with an invasion that is coming, then offer an armed movement as the answer. Only the enemy has changed: where once it was an American-backed coup, it is now the United Nations and the West preparing to hand Prabhakaran a state.
Prabhakaran and the Presidential Election
Victor Ivan argues that the 2005 presidential election was decided not by the Sinhala people, the SLFP, the JVP or the Hela Urumaya but by Prabhakaran, who spoke on Heroes’ Day only after the result of his decision had been announced. Reading that speech, he traces why the LTTE leader wanted Wickremesinghe beaten: the ceasefire began boldly on both sides — roadblocks lifted, the ban withdrawn, a strategic route opened, demining agreed — but the Sri Lankan government would not even press for the Washington aid summit to be held on neutral ground, and talk of a ‘safety net’ confirmed a suspicion that nets are for catching fish. Campaigning on defeating separatism, invoking the lion flag while discussing federalism, and never once appealing on behalf of the Tamil people, Wickremesinghe lost, in Ivan’s phrase, both the branch he held and the branch he stood on. Prabhakaran instead installed the man the Sinhala people had chosen as their Dutugemunu against him. Ivan runs the Dutugemunu-Elara parallel through to its limits — this Elara is the younger man and will not request a duel — and sets out the options open to him, noting the warning that this was a final notice before a decisive struggle in the coming year.
සාමය නොසලකා යුද්ධයට අත වැනීම
The country has a new President, but the search for a peaceful settlement has stalled. Rajapaksa’s win was a win of the Sinhala majority in which minorities had no share; by electing forces that would not grant the Tamils even the tsunami mechanism, the south has signalled that it will not settle the conflict by sharing power.
විමල් වීරවංශ හා චන්දනසූරිය බණ්ඩාර
Under the subhead ‘Minorities within the great Sinhala nation’, Ivan argues that the Sinhala nation itself does not treat all its members as equals, contrasting two former journalists, the JVP’s Wimal Weerawansa and the UNP organiser Chandana Sooriyabandara, and pointing to India, where a Sikh prime minister and a Muslim president are no problem.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය: සිංහල-බෞද්ධ ඡන්ද පදනම
Who will win the presidential election? Testing the JVP’s claim that an SLFP–JVP alliance would have won in 2001, Ivan analyses the party results of the 2000, 2001 and 2004 parliamentary elections, reproduced in tables, to weigh the size of the Sinhala-Buddhist vote each candidate can draw on.
Sinhala Buddhist Vote Base and the Presidential Election
Six weeks before the 2005 presidential election, Victor Ivan works through whether it can be won on Sinhala Buddhist votes alone. He begins by conceding the JVP’s pre-2004 argument was arithmetically sound: had the SLFP, JVP and EPDP contested together in 2001 they would have outpolled the UNP-led alliance by 27,579 votes. Contesting as one in 2004 they gained only 5,019 votes on their separate 2001 total, took 108 seats without a majority, and were outpolled by the combined opposition by some seven lakhs — 46.04% against 53.96%. But a presidential election is a different instrument: two contenders, one national constituency, and a winner who must clear half the vote. Ivan estimates the Sinhala Buddhist electorate at 6,094,667 of roughly 9.16 million valid votes, meaning a candidate relying on it alone would need 75% of it — a target he does not think easily attainable. He notes too why minorities prefer the presidential system: with the Sinhala vote split between the main parties, their votes can decide who becomes head of state.
මහින්දට විය හැක්කේ කුමක් ද?
Mahinda Rajapaksa is near the top, a remarkable feat in a party dominated by one family, and he got there not as a Bandaranaike retainer. Ivan weighs Chandrika Kumaratunga’s decision not to fight him at the convention, and his bold readiness to meet Prabhakaran against his pact with the JVP and Hela Urumaya to keep the unitary state.
අර්බුදය ගමන් ගනිමින් තිබෙන්නේ කොතැනටද?
For all her mistakes, Ivan argues, Chandrika Kumaratunga may enter history as the leader who finally stood up to the Sinhala racist and religious extremists that every leader before her, her father included, obeyed. He then weighs her options as her term runs out: retirement, dissolution with the risk of impeachment, or giving up the presidency to keep the party and the opposition leadership, and what each would mean for Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe.
චම්පිකගේ උගුලට ජවිපෙ අසුවෙයි
The JVP could no longer stay in the alliance because of a public statement based on a wrong calculation, made while competing at once with the SLFP and the Hela Urumaya. The piece follows the monks’ fast against the joint mechanism, the Treasury Secretary’s role, and the President’s meeting with Muslim MPs.
සංඝ ආඥාව – සුන්දර
The Sunday Lakbima’s front page announced that a Sangha decree would expel the President from Buddhism, and its editor-in-chief Sundara Nihathamani de Mel had to answer for it. Ivan compares Gandhi’s model of satyagraha with the Sri Lankan version, and weighs a ruler’s right to decide against the need to win public consent for agreements such as the ceasefire.