Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, born 20 June 1949, is a Sri Lankan politician. He was the head of state of Sri Lanka from 18 November 2019 until 13 July 2022.
A famous anecdote in Sri Lanka summarizes how the Rajapaksa family has taken over the country over the past 20 years.
In the joke, a fictitious Chinese official visits Sri Lanka and is surprised to find that the last name of every person he meets is Rajapaksa.
This power of the Rajapaksa family is now under threat.
The country has been rocked by the biggest economic crisis since 1948 when it declared its independence from Britain, and experts blame the government's economic policies for this situation.
Who is who?
Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, born 20 June 1949, is a Sri Lankan politician. He was the head of state of Sri Lanka from 18 November 2019 until 13 July 2022.
Rajapaksa, who obtained 52.25% of the votes in the presidential elections held on November 16, 2019, came to office as the successor of Maithripala Sirisena.
Rajapaksa returned his United States citizenship in 2018, as well as his Sri Lankan citizenship, in order to take part in the presidential elections.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, who served as the President of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015, is the older brother of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Family origins
The Rajapaksa family, whose origins are rooted in long-established landowners in Hambantota in the south of the country, began to show their strength in domestic politics when Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected as the youngest member of the Assembly in 1970.
In the 1980s, both Mahinda and her older brother Chamal were MPs.
Mahinda was accused of violating human rights for her harsh intervention in a leftist group's revolt between 1987-89 and asked the United Nations (UN) to intervene in the crisis.
He was appointed Minister of Finance in 1994. Mahinda, who became prime minister 10 years later, was elected president in 2005.
The civil war, which started with the uprising of the separatist Tamil Tigers organization in 2009 and lasted for nearly 30 years, ended bloodily in the country under the rule of Mahinda, who served as Sri Lanka's president for two terms (2005-2015).
Despite this victory, Mahinda was accused of both human rights violations against ethnic and religious minorities and corruption. However, he has always denied these allegations.
Despite these controversies, the Rajapaksa family continued to monopolize Sri Lankan politics.
Gotabaya, who was brought to a senior role in the Ministry of Defense, was praised by some for his skill in leading the civil war.
Another member of the family, Chamal, served in ministries such as Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Affairs, while one of his brothers, Basil, held positions in the ministries of Finance and Economic Development.
Other relatives of the four brothers also held positions in various government agencies, notably Mahinda's son, Sports Minister Namal, and Yoshita, who once served as the prime minister's chief of staff.
But it was a big surprise that Mahinda failed to win the presidential election in 2015, and the family's power began to wane.
4 years later, this time the Rajapaksa family regained power in politics when he became the president of Gotabaya and took the wheel.
Prior to the economic crisis, Sri Lanka was rocked by attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in April 2019, which killed more than 250 people.