Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, RWP, RSP (Sinhala: නන්දසේන ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ; Tamil: நந்தசேன கோட்டாபய ராஜபக்ஷ; born 20 June 1949) is a former Sri Lankan politician and military officer, who served as the eighth President of Sri Lanka from 18 November 2019 until his resignation on 14 July 2022 due to months of public anger. He previously served as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development from 2005 to 2015 under the administration of his elder brother former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Born to a political family from the Southern Province, Rajapaksa was educated at Ananda College, Colombo and joined the Ceylon Army in April 1971. Following basic training at the Army Training Centre, Diyatalawa, he was commissioned as signals officer and later transferred to several infantry regiments. He saw active service in the early stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War with the elite Gajaba Regiment, taking part in several major offensives such as the Vadamarachi Operation, Operation Strike Hard and Operation Thrividha Balaya, as well as counter-insurgency operations during the 1987–1989 JVP insurrection.

Rajapaksa took early retirement from the army and moved into the field of information technology, before immigrating to the United States in 1998. He returned to Sri Lanka in 2005, to assist his brother in his presidential campaign and was appointed Defence Secretary in his brother's administration. During his tenure the Sri Lankan Armed Forces successfully concluded the Sri Lankan Civil War defeating the LTTE and killing its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009. He was a target of an assassination attempt in December 2006 by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber. Following the war, Rajapaksa initiated many urban development projects. He stepped down following the defeat of his brother in the 2015 presidential election.

Rajapaksa emerged as the SLPP candidate for the 2019 presidential election, in which he successfully contested on a pro-nationalistic, economic development and national security platform. He was the first president of Sri Lanka with military background and also the first elected president who had never held an elected office before. During his presidency, Rajapaksa increased his presidential powers through the 20th Amendment and nepotism rose as members of the Rajapaksa family were appointed to several positions of power, and led the country during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Economic mismanagement drove the country to bankruptcy, causing Sri Lanka to declare default for the first time since gaining independence in 1948. This economic crisis caused shortages and inflation, leading to the 2022 Sri Lankan protests and political crisis. The Rajapaksa administration responded by declaring a state of emergency, which allowed the military to arrest civilians, imposing curfews, restricting social media, assaulting protesters and journalists, and arresting online activists. Rajapaksa refused to step down, even after protests became violent, until 14 July, when Rajapaksa fled the country via a military aircraft and began a 50-day self-exile, and officially emailed his resignation letter from Singapore the next day. On 2 September, Rajapaksa returned to Sri Lanka.