COLOMBO – The man who is considered the heir apparent to the powerful Rajapaksa family in Sri Lanka will contest the presidential election in September, his political party said Wednesday, in an apparent bid to regain his family's lost power after a humiliating setback two years ago during an unprecedented economic crisis in the Indian ocean island nation.
The Sri Lanka People's Front said the 38-year-old lawyer Namal Rajapaksa, the eldest son of former strongman president Mahinda Rajapaksa, will be its candidate in the Sept. 21 election, the first since the nation plunged into its worst economic crisis.
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The election is seen as key to Sri Lanka's efforts to conclude a critical debt restructuring program and completing the financial reforms agreed to under a bailout program by the International Monetary Fund.
The nominations for polling will be accepted on Aug. 15.
The Rajapaksa family has dominated Sri Lankan politics since the country gained independence from Britain in 1948, producing a dozen lawmakers from three generations spanning seven decades. Mahinda Rajapaksa ruled as president from 2005 to 2015, appealing to the nationalist sentiment of the island’s Buddhist-Sinhalese majority.
Rajapaksa is revered by that majority for leading Sri Lanka to victory over ethnic Tamil rebels in 2009, ending a 26-year civil war.
In 2015, he lost to the opposition led by his former aide. But the family made a comeback in 2019, when Rajapaksa's younger brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, won the presidential election on a promise to restore security in the wake of the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 290 people.
But the Rajapaksa family lost power unexpectedly in 2022 when Sri Lanka was engulfed in its worst economic crisis that was largely caused by mismanagement and lack of accountability.
The resulting shortages of essential goods sparked riots in 2022, leading to a political crisis that forced four Rajapaksa siblings and two of their sons, including Namal, to resign from their posts as president, prime minister and cabinet ministers. Namal Rajapaksa had been minister of youth and sports. But they remained as lawmakers.
Parliament elected then-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as president.
The economic situation has improved under Wickremesinghe. But public dissatisfaction has grown over the government’s effort to increase revenue by raising electricity bills and imposing heavy new income taxes on professionals and businesses as part of efforts to meet the conditions of the IMF, which approved a four-year bailout program in March.
Wickremesinghe has announced he will run in the September election, while main rivals will be opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Anura Dissanayake, the leader of a leftist political party that has gained popularity after the economic debacle.
It’s not clear whether Rajapaksa would be able to win the election, as his Sri Lanka People's Front is already split with some lawmakers having pledged support to Wickremesinghe.
Wickremesinghe’s party has only one seat in the 225-majority parliament, and he has been ruling with the support of lawmakers from the Rajapaksas' party.