සනත් ගුණතිලක සහ රුපියල
A profile of the actor Sanath Gunathilake after losing his post as the President’s media adviser, a fall Ivan likens to the rupee’s. He describes the vehicles, guards, free stays at the Galadari hotel and deference he once enjoyed, his habit of attaching himself to whoever held power from Gamini Dissanayake to Kumaratunga, and the income he drew from bar licences run by Neil Abeywardena, liquor distribution, advertising, teledramas and the Channel 9 deal with Lakshman Hulugalle.
මහජන මුදල් සමග සෙල්ලම් කිරීම
While development spending is cut, Lake House spent Rs. 5 million printing 290,200 copies of a photograph of the President and her children for free distribution with Silumina and the Sunday Observer during the parliamentary election. The editorial ridicules Chief Government Whip Reggie Ranatunga’s claim in Parliament that the public had asked for it, and says the money would have been better spent on exercise books for poor schoolchildren.
ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදයේ පැවැත්ම තීන්දු කෙරෙන මැතිවරණ
Ivan calls the October 2000 parliamentary election decisive for whatever democracy remains. The UNP introduced institutional violence but could at least retreat under pressure; the People’s Alliance won the North Western poll by open plunder without remedy. He welcomes unprecedented pressure from unions, temples, churches, the Elections Commissioner and EU observers, but argues the courts offer no recourse, since Sarath N. Silva took over Karu Jayasuriya’s rights case against ITN and Lake House and sent it to bodies tied to Mangala Samaraweera.
රාජ්ය මාධ්යයේ ඉහඳ පණුවෝ
Written in Ivan’s own voice, the piece answers the sustained attacks on him and Ravaya by state media and government-funded ‘jungle papers’. He describes how Bennet Rupasinghe and Sujeewa Dissanayake won editorships at Dinamina and Silumina by serving their political master, the minister’s contemptuous nicknames for them, and a former regional correspondent now heading the smear unit. He says he lives on his Ravaya salary and declined posts the government offered.
මාධ්ය නිදහසට මරණය
The editorial says no government has been as hostile to media freedom as the present one, which claims to have granted that freedom. It recalls that Ravaya exposed bank frauds, land grabs and the Airbus deal under Jayewardene and Premadasa, and that Premadasa even appointed a committee on its land revelations. Media freedom was won by journalists, it argues, and warns against the servility shown at the President’s address.
සියලු විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ තුළ සාධාරණ සැකයක්
The editorial says the People’s Alliance’s presidential victory is doubted by all opposition parties. It cites PAFFREL reports of ballot snatching and the expulsion of opposition polling agents, contrasts the silence of the acting Elections Commissioner, an outsider appointed without electoral experience, with the annulments made after the North Western provincial poll, and notes the misuse of state media. It calls on the government to reform the electoral machinery before a parliamentary election.