The Hard Road Ahead ; Sri Lanka's New President Mahinda Rajapakse Faces the Challenges of Brokering the Peace Process and Reviving a Battered Economy

Summary

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Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka's new President, was considered a shrewd regional politician rather than a national figure. His macho looks once landed him the lead role in a Sinhalese film, The Immortals. Now, at the age of 60, the part-time lawyer and human rights activist, has been catapulted to the centre stage at a time his nation is again at a crossroads. The close presidential contest on November 17 turned out to be a referendum on whether the majority Sinhalese want to share political power with the minority Tamils. The answer was a clear "No".

A majority of people voted against a federal state as the solution to the bloody separatist campaign by the Tamil Tigers. Rajapakse bagged 50.3 per cent of the total votes-around 1,80,000 votes more than the 48.4 per cent polled by his main opponent and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Rajapakse's votes came from the Sinhalese, most of whom live outside the embattled north and east. Rajapakse, who was the prime minister before being elected as the President, had taken a huge gamble in teaming up with the island's main Marxist and nationalist party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

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The Hard Road Ahead ; Sri Lanka's New President Mahinda Rajapakse Faces the Challenges of Brokering the Peace Process and Reviving a Battered Economy

Paradoxically, Rajapakse was elected because of the Tigers, as people in the northern Jaffna and Vanni districts boycotted the polls at their instance. Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) was confident that the northern Tamils would pick their candidate for negot...

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