The year following the December 2004 tsunami, Sri Lanka elected a new president, Mahinda Rajapaksa. After a bitter electoral struggle, Rajapaksa defeated United National Party candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe by a narrow margin of 190,000 votes. But Rajapaksa was the subject of many suspicions – ranging from embezzlement of reconstruction funds to vote manipulation.
Either way, Rajapaksa was determined to shape the political future of the country – and his own. During the 2005 presidential campaign, he told the author of these lines of his many aspirations: he wanted to put an end to the interminable war [avec les Tigres de libération de l’Eelam tamoul, LTTE]consolidate the political legacy of the Rajapaksa, and launch the career of his son Namal Rajapaksa.
You would have thought Mahinda Rajapaksa had succeeded in realizing his dream, until this year his own supporters took to the streets to demand his resignation and an end to his family’s rule. His “family power system” was perfectly grounded and he never stopped defending it.
Mahinda’s first term: siblings in power
Elected president, he had brought his brother Gotabaya, a former army officer and at the time an American citizen, to occupy the post of Deputy Minister of Defence. Soon, his other brother Basil, also an American citizen, was appointed senior adviser to the president.
During Mahinda’s first term, the Rajapaksa firmly secured the country’s finances. Those who criticized the concentration of power, nepotism, human rights violations and large-scale corruption were called “traitors”. Their accusations were presented as anti-Rajapaksa propaganda.
Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, the vast majority of voters did not understand for a long time that power games of this type were a systemic problem, and that feudal loyalties ultimately undermine the public and national interest. Thus, the gods continued to favor the expansion of the Rajapaksa family in public life.
Having defeated the Tigers, no qualms about the method
Inasmuch as “The president is there