යහපත් දේශපාලන ක්රමයක් සඳහා සිහින දැකීමේ අවශ්යතාව
Writing during the 2012 provincial council elections, Ivan examines the electoral system created in 1978. Quoting Election Commissioner Chandananda de Silva’s report on the 1989 election, he argues that the system hands the party holding the presidency control of Parliament and the public service, and that open vote-buying and campaigns costing billions have turned elections into auctions. He recalls watching money flow to Chandrika Kumaratunga’s campaigns and Leslie Goonewardene’s refusal of foreign funds for his party, and warns that the country’s richest people have made their fortunes by funding politicians and now rule from behind the scenes.
විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka stands on the brink of the collapse of its political system, as N.M. Perera predicted of J.R. Jayewardene’s 1977 constitution. He cautions the new opposition Movement Against Lawlessness against idealising the 17th Amendment, since the constitution lets the president stand above the law as a constitutional dictator. The removal of limits on election spending has put black money in control of sectors from the stock market to energy, and even a change of government would not rescue the system. He draws a symbolic parallel between Prabhakaran’s rise by eliminating other Tamil leaders and what may be unfolding in the Sinhala South.
අපට කළහැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan argues that Sri Lankan society has become spiritually rotten after thirty years of violence within and between communities, which left widows, orphans and a population traumatised by fear, and armed criminals serving both rebels and the state. The war was won but the great transformation that should have followed was not attempted, and the corrupt political system is now close to collapse. Using the parable of a crumbling house, he proposes that a small group with a sense of justice should leave it and build a model community free of caste, race and religious divisions, and he invites debate on the idea.
දේශපාලන ක්රමයේ ගමනක අවසානයද?
Ivan argues that the political system is collapsing so fast that an explosion may be near. He cites some 600,000 people wanted on warrants, about 11 in every 100 adults, a conviction rate of around 4% against 70% in India, and extortion from private buses running to hundreds of millions of rupees a month. He traces the growth of a lumpen class of contract killers, extortionists and drug dealers to the post-1977 system, to politicians’ private militias and to the auction of liquor licences being replaced by patronage, and gives examples of land frauds, including a woman who came to him for help in Chandrika Kumaratunga’s time.
කරුගේ ඇස් පෑදීම
Ivan welcomes Karu Jayasuriya’s call for the fragmented opposition to unite under a common banner to abolish the executive presidency, noting that for the first time Jayasuriya speaks of the political system as a whole. A statement is not enough, he argues, without a working programme, and he sets out six observations: the system has run its historical course; it fragments the opposition; it has lost legitimacy; it lets ruling groups drain the country’s wealth; it encourages corruption by removing old safeguards such as the ban on MPs doing business with the state; and it makes the rule of law, urged by the Lessons Learnt commission, impossible to achieve.
පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ පරිහානිය හා එය ජයගැනීම
Ivan’s submission to the parliamentary select committee on the conduct and discipline of MPs. He cites a survey in which only 12% of people trusted Parliament, and traces the decline through land grabs and permits, thugs and private militias, and black money in elections, contrasting today’s spending with the limits of 1965 and 1970. He recalls the L.M.D. de Silva and Thalgodapitiya commissions, which led to MPs being expelled, and argues that the assets and liabilities law should be enforced, with declarations published on a parliament website. He also proposes a German-style mixed electoral system instead of the plan of the Dinesh Gunawardena committee.
සෝභිත හිමිගේ පැතුම
Unable to attend Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero’s 70th birthday, Ivan honours him as one of the few learned people who never stayed silent in the face of wrongdoing. He recalls telling two vice-chancellors, G.L. Peiris and Arjuna Aluwihare, after the second JVP revolt that intellectuals’ silence was the cause of youth rebellion. Sobitha Thero called for abolishing the executive presidency and changing the electoral system in his lifetime, and Ivan notes a growing chorus — Maithripala Sirisena, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, government MPs, the Communist Party, the JHU — for change. He contrasts the old Westminster system, with by-elections, constituency MPs, spending limits and a Prime Minister in Parliament, with the executive presidency, which concentrates power in one person above the law and turns governance into a system of plunder.
දේශපාලන ප්රතිසංස්කරණ මගහැරයෑමේ හැකියාවක් නැත
Had the country reorganised itself after the war, Ivan argues, it would have satisfied its people and reduced foreign pressure. Three insurrections have cost over 100,000 lives and many of the best leaders — a foreign scholar told a friend that no comparable country had lost so many — yet the causes were never addressed and the Youth Commission’s findings, including on caste, were ignored. Every institution has decayed: Parliament, a discredited judiciary with a 4% conviction rate, schools reliant on tuition, hospitals short of drugs, chaotic buses, a tangled public pay system. Taxes on flour and fuel fall on ordinary people without matching services; corruption is built into a system of black-money elections; and the President stands above the law, which is why the 13th and 17th Amendments were never binding. Only a fundamental reorganisation, including a fair settlement with the Tamils, can prevent permanent division.
ප්රතිසංස්කරණය හා ප්රතිනිර්මාණය
Answering lawyer Sudarshana Gunawardana of Rights Now and the Platform for Freedom, who wrote in Samabima that Ivan merely preaches to the ruler, Ivan says he never believed sermons to leaders could change the system. Rejecting violent revolution, he sees two peaceful routes — persuading lawmakers, the quicker one, or building an alternative within the old system, as set out in his book on saving Sri Lanka — and argues reform must come now, not after the next change of government, because terrorism is gone, the system is exposed and exhausted, and black money is taking over. He calls for a broad national reform agenda drafted as carefully as India’s constitution, dismisses the Platform as a foreign-funded project with a narrow base and no theory, and describes his own books on the political system, caste and religion as the result of long study.
වාද කරන්නට පෙර ප්රකෘති සිහිය ඇති කරගැනීම වැදගත්ය
Answering Gamini Viyangoda and Jayatilaka Kammallaweera, who accused him of labelling them and of defending the Rajapaksa regime, Ivan restates his thesis: after losing socialism they adopted the ethnic crisis as their cause and lost their judgement when the LTTE fell, as he once feared a coup under Wijeweera’s spell before 1971. He rejects Viyangoda’s claim that he attacked individuals for twenty years and turned to ‘the system’ only to protect Rajapaksa, noting that his ‘Chaura Rajya’ series on reforming the predatory state ran in Ravaya in 2002, before ‘Chaura Rajina’ (2006), and listing earlier articles on system change. He recalls the Kaha Pati (yellow ribbon) campaign of 2000, the all-party talks on his reform draft in Parliament in 2001, and the 2006 Kobbekaduwa round table, and argues that reform must come by consensus, as Mandela achieved.