Sri Lanka has been witnessing a surge of Sinhala nationalism, akin to the Hindu nationalism that propelled Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in 2019. The central figure in the politics of the island nation is Gotabaya Rajapaksa who is hugely popular among the Sinhala majority for crushing the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels in 2009 when he was defence secretary. Many in the country also admire him for his administration’s success in bringing stability and successfully containing the recent Coronavirus outbreak. Sri Lanka has been one of the few nations to hold an election despite the Coronavirus pandemic.
The country has had relatively few confirmed infections and deaths of Coronavirus. So it came as no surprise when voters handed him and his brother, two-time President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) a two-third majority in the parliamentary election. Gotabaya, the younger of the two brothers, was elected president in a similar landslide victory in November. The Rajapaksa family will continue to reign supreme in the island nation for a long time.
The victory means several things to several people and countries. India needs to be particularly wary of the development. Indeed New Delhi will have to take proactive steps to ensure that Sri Lanka does not slip totally into the arc of influence of China which has been wooing and ensnaring the Rajapaksa brothers alternatively.
To the Rajapaksas, it gives the opportunity to amend the constitution right off the bat. The 19th amendment to the constitution, passed in 2015 after Mahinda was voted out of office following nearly 10 years in power, vastly reduces the executive powers of the president, distributing them more evenly between the prime minister, Parliament and other democratic institutions. The Rajapaksas have contended the weakening of the presidency led to inefficient governance and weak security policies.