Mahinda Rajapaksa

Mahinda Rajapaksa (2014)

Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa ( Sinhala මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ , Tamil மகிந்த ராசபக்ச *  18th November 1945 in Weerakatiya , District Hambantota ) is a Sri Lankan politician . From 2005 to January 2015 he was the sixth President of Sri Lanka . He has been Prime Minister of the country since November 21, 2019.

Origin and political career

Rajapaksa was born in Weerakatiya in the Hambantota district in southern Sri Lanka. He comes from a politically active family. His father Don Alwin Rajapaksa (1905-1967) was a member of parliament and a minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Vijayananda Dahanayake . Rajapaksa attended the Richmond College in Galle / Sri Lanka and later the Nalanda College and the Thurstan College in Colombo. After the death of his father, he was a candidate of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) at the age of only 24 years for the constituency Beliatta to parliament voted . He later studied law at Sri Lanka Law College and was sworn in as a lawyer in 1977. After losing his seat in parliament in 1977, he worked as a lawyer alongside his political activities until 2001.

Following the 1994 general election and the victory of the People's Alliance , led by the SLFP, Rajapaksa became Minister of Labor and later Minister of Fisheries and Water Resources. After the United National Party's victory in the 2001 general election , Rajapaksa lost his ministerial office, but was elected opposition leader the following year. After the election victory of the United People's Freedom Alliance in 2004 , he was elected Prime Minister on April 6, 2004. In the 2005 presidential election he won the Sri Lanka Freedom Party candidate with 50.3% of the vote against Ranil Wickremesinghe and was elected President of the country to succeed Chandrika Kumaratunga .

Mahinda Rajapaksa (2006)

Political strategies

His collaboration with the formerly militarist Sinhala nationalist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) against the will of his own party is controversial . Rajapaksa is considered a socialist . He spoke out against the Tamil rebels' aspirations for autonomy and for a unified state . After coming to power, he announced talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and a review of the fragile ceasefire of 2002, but relied on a military solution.

On May 19, 2009, Rajapaksa finally declared the end of the 26-year civil war in Sri Lanka following the final military victory of the Sri Lankan army and the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran and the entire leadership of the LTTE. According to UN estimates, 7,000 civilians died in the military offensive against the "Tamil Liberation Tigers". A Tamil leader, however, spoke of 10,000 civilians killed. Former UN spokesman for Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, estimated the death toll at up to 40,000 civilians. Just before that, Rajapaksa did not give in to pressure from French and British Foreign Ministers Kouchner and Miliband , who insisted on a ceasefire. He called these demands a joke and advised them to be aware of their own actions (in Iraq and Afghanistan) before blaming others; he does not need any instructions from Western representatives.

Second term as President 2010 to 2015

In the early presidential election in January 2010 , Rajapaksa was confirmed in office for a further six years with 57.9% of the vote. He was able to prevail against his challenger, the former General Sarath Fonseka . This had reached 40.2% of the vote. Fonseka accused Rajapaksa of electoral fraud. Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, the head of the largest Tamil alliance in Sri Lanka, accused the re-elected president of human rights violations in the conflict with the Tamils. For example, 280,000 people were left homeless as a result of the suppression of the Tamil uprising.

On February 8, 2010, Rajapaksa had the former presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka arrested, accused him of conspiracy against the government and announced parliamentary elections the next day. This took place on April 8, 2010 with his party winning the most seats. On September 8, 2010, the 225-member parliament of Sri Lanka passed a constitutional amendment with the necessary two-thirds majority of 161 to 17 votes with many abstentions, which allows the president to remain in office for more than 2 terms in the event of re-election. This allowed Rajapaksa to run for a third time. Rajapaksa has been accused by his domestic political opponents of bribing and threatening his opponents in parliament.

On October 20, 2014, Rajapaksa announced an early presidential election for January 8, 2015 - two years before the regular election date, which was generally seen as an attempt to surprise the opposition and deprive them of the chance of rallying and agreeing on a strong opponent . But his previous confidante, the health minister and general secretary of the presidential party Maithripala Sirisena , surprisingly ran as an opposing candidate a month later. He was supported by a number of influential politicians. During the election campaign he promised to curtail the president's rights in favor of a strengthened parliament. Sirisena managed to prevail against the incumbent in the election and, contrary to fears, Rajapaksa immediately recognized his defeat and resigned from office on January 9, 2015.

Developments after 2015

At first it seemed as if the elected Rajapaksa had lost his influence in Sri Lankan politics with the loss of the presidency. His opponent Sirisena also took over the chairmanship of the SLFP from Rajapaksa and Rajapaksa apparently remained sidelined in the opposition without a political office. However, he made a remarkable political comeback . On November 2, 2016, a new party, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP, “Sri Lanka Popular Front”) was established, chaired by GL Peiris, a former minister in the cabinet of Mahinda Rajapaksa. In the Sri Lankan public, however, it was generally assumed that Peiris only held a kind of deputy position and that Mahinda Rajapaksa was the actual leading mastermind behind the scenes. In the regional elections in Sri Lanka in February 2018, the SLPP became the strongest force with almost 45% of the votes nationwide. On August 11, 2019, Rajapaksa officially took over the SLPP party chairmanship.

From October to December 2018, Rajapaksa served as prime minister after coming to terms with his former political adversary, President Sirisena. However, it did not succeed in getting a vote of confidence in parliament. The attempt made by President Sirisena to dissolve parliament and to call new elections failed because the Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. As a result, on December 15, 2018, Rajapaksa resigned after only 50 days in office.

After his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidential election on November 16, 2019 , Mahinda Rajapaksa was again Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from November 21, 2019.

Private life

Rajapaksa is married and has three sons. His family is prominently represented in Sri Lankan politics. His brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Minister of Defense and is the current President of the country. Another brother is Basil Rajapaksa , who is Sri Lanka's Minister of Economy. His eldest son Namil Rajapaksa (* 1987) is a member of parliament.

Web links

Commons : Mahinda Rajapaksa  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of Mahinda Rajapaksa

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} President’s Profile. ( Memento of July 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: President's Fund of Sri Lanka.
2. ^ President Mahinda Rajapaksa: About the President. ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Sri Lanka: President declares rebels "completely defeated". In: Die Welt , May 19, 2009.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Brutal Warlord or Peacemaker? In: Die Presse , January 28, 2010, accessed September 14, 2011.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Golden Chance. In: Der Spiegel , No. 5, p. 84, February 1, 2010.
6. ↑ Hell or High Water. ( Memento of April 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: ABC News , accessed on September 14, 2011.
7. ↑ Sri Lanka scolds West for 'Lectures' on Tamils. In: Presstv.ir.
8. ↑ Department of Election: Presidential Election - 2010 Official Results ( Memento from August 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ).
9. ↑ Early elections in Sri Lanka? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 24, January 29, 2010, p. 6.
10. ^ President Rajapakse dissolves parliament. In: Der Standard , February 9, 2010, accessed September 14, 2011.
11. ↑ Friederike Böge: The end of an era of triumphalism. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 19, 2015, accessed on January 20, 2010 . 
12. ↑ All Island Results - Final. adaderana.lk, accessed on October 17, 2019 . 
13. ↑ SLPP names Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as presidential candidate. colombopage.com, August 11, 2019, accessed October 14, 2019 . 
14. ↑ Sri Lanka's exiled Prime Minister Wickremesinghe returns. Deutsche Welle, December 16, 2018, accessed January 20, 2019 . 
15. ↑ Sri Lanka's parliament expresses distrust of the new prime minister. der Standard, November 14, 2018, accessed January 20, 2019 . 
16. ↑ Sri Lanka parliament sacking 'illegal'. BBC News, December 13, 2018, accessed January 20, 2019 . 
17. ↑ Sri Lanka's new head of government resigns. Deutsche Welle, December 15, 2018, accessed January 20, 2019 . 
18. ^ Mahinda Rajapaksa sworn in as new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Colombo Page, November 21, 2019, accessed November 21, 2019 .