Sri Lanka is facing the worst financial crisis of all time. The country’s general public is reassured by the power crisis and rising commodity prices, as well as declining foreign exchange reserves.
In this situation, the anger of the people naturally fell on the members of the Rajapaksa family, the most powerful group in the country. Over the past few decades, the family has had a total of five members in various positions of governance in the country and the real control over Sri Lankan politics and economy is in their hands.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Thursday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck.
News agency AFP has created a brief profile of 5 influential members of this family. The members are the current Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa, his three brothers Gotabaya, Basil and Chamal Rajapaksa and the eldest son of Mahinda Rajapaksa Namal Rajapaksa.
Team Leader
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the current Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, is considered to be the charismatic head of the Rajapaksa family. Mahinda, 6, became Sri Lanka’s first prime minister in 2004. He was then the President of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015.
Mahinda Rajapaksa is very popular with the majority Sinhala Buddhist community in Sri Lanka; And the main reason for his popularity is his leading role in suppressing the separatist Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka in 2009. However, there are allegations that he did so in a brutal military manner. There are also multiple allegations of human rights violations against him.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was in power at the time, denied the death toll and refused to investigate the allegations of atrocities internationally.
During Mahinda Rajapaksa’s rule, Sri Lanka’s relations with China became even closer. Mahinda has also borrowed about কোটি 800 million from China at various times for the country’s infrastructural development, but there has been rampant corruption in almost all of its development projects.
At the same time, despite his crackdown on Tamil rebels, he has played little role in ending hostilities between the country’s majority Buddhist community and Tamil-speaking groups. So far, Tamils have been kept under wraps and allegedly prevented from remembering rebels killed in the civil war.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was his chief companion or lieutenant when he was President of Sri Lanka. Gotabaya, the former secretary of the most influential defense ministry in the country’s government, has used his administrative powers to gradually influence the Sri Lankan army and police.
Allegedly, Gotabaya formed a ‘death squad’ to hide his opponents. However, The Terminator Gotabaya has denied the allegations. He is currently the President of Sri Lanka as well as the Ministry of Defense.
Since Gotabaya took over as president in 2019, Sri Lanka’s economy has been in turmoil, with terrorist attacks and a political crisis hitting the country hard.
Gotabaya quickly took office after taking office as the new president. His government started giving tax exemptions in various sectors as well as releasing cash in the market. As a result, inflation continues to rise and tax collection decreases. As a result, the budget deficit is widening.
The Easter bombings in 2016 brought down Sri Lanka’s tourism sector. The landslide was prolonged after the Corona epidemic began in 2019.
Mr. Ten percent
Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s younger brother and the country’s current finance minister Basil Rajapaksa (60) are the current finance ministers of Sri Lanka. Also known as ten percent.
Basil also alleged that he had laundered millions of dollars in various banks outside the country.
‘The Bodyguard’
Chamal Rajapakse (69) is the oldest of the Rajapakse brothers. He is three years older than Mahinda Rajapaksa, the ‘team leader’ of the family. Chamal was the Speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament when Mahinda was President. He was also the former Minister of Shipping and Aviation Services of Sri Lanka.
He is currently the caretaker Minister of Irrigation, but his main influence is in the Ministry of Defense.
Heir to the family
He is the Youth and Sports Minister of the current government of Sri Lanka. Namal Rajapaksa has always denied allegations of corruption and money laundering against him.
