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.
රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහටත් ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය එපාවේ!
Ivan notes that if Ranil Wickremesinghe’s complaint is Mahinda Rajapaksa rather than the
system, then removing the man and preserving the machine is the wrong remedy — and that his
promise to abolish the executive presidency under a UNP government reads as a concession to
his party rather than a conviction. Some presidents built things within the corrupt system,
he grants; but what has hollowed out the rule of law is the system, not the individual.
කැරලිකරුවන් අභිබවා රනිල් ජයගැනීම
Ranil Wickremesinghe has now put down the third revolt against him, and Ivan explains why he
was always going to. The party constitution gives its leader the same absolute power
Sirimavo Bandaranaike used to survive seventeen years out of office — though it cost her the
premiership when the party finally won. The rebels had no agreed leader, and Ranil set
Sajith Premadasa’s name against S.B. Dissanayake’s until neither mattered. They should have
gone after the constitution, not the man.
එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ අර්බුදය
Ivan argues that the UNP’s decline is not Ranil Wickremesinghe’s doing but the working of
the system the party itself built: J.R. Jayewardene designed a machine that would not change
hands, and since 1994 it has kept his party out for fifteen years. Party constitutions
mirror the national one — the leader is above the document, as the president is — and the
party is caught in a trap of its own making.
ව්‍යවස්ථා සභාව, උයන්ගොඩ හා විග්නේෂ්වරම්
The Jathika Hela Urumaya objects to Jayadeva Uyangoda’s nomination to the Constitutional
Council because he once served a twelve-year sentence, and the prime minister to C.V.
Wigneswaran’s. Ivan answers that the 1977 government repealed the law Uyangoda was sentenced
under and gazetted that it should not follow him, that Gandhi, Mandela and D.S. Senanayake
were all imprisoned men, and that being Tamil does not make a retired Supreme Court judge a
separatist. The deeper fault, he argues, is a constitution written to place the president
above itself.
පෞද්ගලික වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාල ප්‍රශ්නය ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
Replying to a Peradeniya medical student who objected to his earlier column, Ivan asks why
selling medical services is acceptable if selling medical education is not, and sets World
Health Organization figures for doctors, nurses and pharmacists per ten thousand people
against those of Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Korea and Europe. Two per cent of Sri Lankan
children who start school reach a degree, against forty in Korea; the state holds a monopoly
on universities it cannot fund, and twenty-two billion rupees a year leaves the country with
the students it turns away.
පරාජයට බිය නොවන රනිල්
Ivan reads the revolt against Ranil Wickremesinghe at Sirikotha as an illustration of the
political system’s absurdity: a party with no constitutional means of removing its own
leader, in which the leader holds the same absolute power over the party that the president
holds over the country. He imagines Ranil’s arithmetic — his uncle reached the top at
seventy-one — and concludes that until the party gives itself a civilised constitution,
nothing it does about the man will matter.
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.
අලුතෙන් හිතන්නට කාලය පැමිණ තිබේ
Sri Lanka is close to winning one of the two decisive questions before it. Where every previous approach had failed and the country was stuck with no end in sight, Rajapaksa made a reckless attempt, staking his own survival and the country’s on fighting the LTTE to a military defeat, and went on down that road against opposition at home and abroad. The world thought he would destroy the country and himself; instead he reached the post he aimed at. The world is changed by those who swim upstream, and until they arrive they are taken for madmen rather than heroes. Military defeat will not settle the ethnic question by itself, but it creates conditions in which it can be settled — and doing so is the shared responsibility of everyone, with the opposition’s duty being to help rather than obstruct. The second question, replacing a disordered political system, needs the same cooperation.
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.