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By
Nilova Roy Chaudhury
My When elections for the leadership of the
Sri Lanka Freedom Party were due in June 2006, with both Mahinda Rajapaksa
and Chandrika Kumaratunga contesting, Anura Bandaranaike wrote a letter
to the former saying he could not choose between his “close friend”
(Rajapaksa) and sister (Chandrika), so he would not vote.
Rajapaksa won the party polls, but speaks warmly
of Kumaratunga and his family’s decades-old ties with the Bandaranaikes.
Loyalty to party, principles and friends has been
the hallmark of Rajapaksa’s political philosophy, following
the example of his father, D.A. Rajapaksa, whose loyalty to the
SLFP, which he helped found, and to the late SWRD Bandaranaike and
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, whose leadership and politics he accepted,
was legendary.
Part of one of the key families that has dominated
Sri Lankan politics since the island nation attained independence
in 1948, Mahinda Rajapaksa, 62, former prime minister, Member of
Parliament, lawyer, human rights activist and trade unionist, was
elected the fifth Executive President of Sri Lanka after national
elections in November 2005.
A lawyer by training, Rajapaksa was 24 when first
elected to Parliament in 1970, as representative from the Beliatta
constituency in southern Hambantota district. Mahinda inherited
the mantle of the southern rural leadership and a earthy brown shawl
— the colour of kurakkan (a type of maize) cultivated by the
rural poor — from his father and uncle. He likes to be identified
as a champion of the masses.
Rajapakse’s presidency, however, has been
marred by allegations of Sinhala chauvinism and has seen a resurgence
of ethnic violence that has stretched the fragile ceasefire between
the government and the Tamil Tigers to breaking point.
A devout Buddhist, Rajapaksa denies charges of
being a Sinhala hardliner and claims he has never been a sympathiser
of the chauvinist Sinhalese Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) party.
His campaigns as a human rights activist in the 1970s and 80s caused
the JVP to attack his home with grenades.
Rajapaksa visited India shortly after becoming
President and has been pushing for an active role by India in the
island’s ethnic conflict. According to him, India being such
a large neighbour, can be a great contributor to ensuring a lasting
peace in the island.
Rajapaksa favours the Indian federal system as
the model on which to base the devolution of power to the Tamils
in Sri Lanka and set up an all-party committee to look into devolution
models suitable for the country.
Simultaneously, his government gave the army the
go-ahead to militarily overcome the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), which, they claim, is not a true representative of the Tamil
population of the country.
The Indian government is not comfortable with the
idea of a military solution and has cautioned Rajapaksa to seek
a political resolution to the island’s decades-long ethnic
conflict.
Described as the ‘white terror’ (for
the white ‘vesti’ he wears) of 1988-90, he mobilised people’s
action in defence of democratic rights against the then government,
for which the Vishwa Bharati University conferred on him the title
of Professor Emeritus.
A fitness fanatic frequently seen cheering Sri
Lankan sportspersons and particularly the rugby team, Rajapaksa,
who is married and has three sons, has installed a gym at ‘Temple
Trees’, the President’s official residence.
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