COLOMBO, sri lanka — Until just a few weeks ago, Sri Lanka’s upcoming election seemed a mere formality. Nothing, it seemed, could keep President Ma hinda Rajapaksa from rolling to a third term in office.
He was the president hailed as a king after crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009 and ending the island nation’s 25-year civil war. He is a charismatic campaigner with vast campaign funds. He has turned the government into an extended family business, with politically powerful brothers, sons and nephews who can help his candidacy. But times change.
An internal revolt threatens Rajapaksa’s hold. Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena, a close Rajapaksa aide and No. 2 in the president’s Freedom Party, defected in a secretly choreographed news conference in November, announcing he would run as an opposition candidate in Thursday’s election.
Power, he said, has become too concentrated, and corruption epidemic.
“One family has captured the country’s economy, wealth, administration and the management of the political party,” Sirisena said.
He says at campaign rallies that Rajapaksa began to believe the public support after the end of the war and “perhaps he thought he could become a real king.”
A confident Rajapaksa had called the election two years ahead of schedule, hoping to win a third six-year term before voters’ memories faded of the defeat of the Tigers. The next day, though, Sirisena, who had called for Rajapaksa to run again, made his own surprise announcement.
That set off a wave of political turmoil and energized an opposition that had not been looking forward to the election.
But Rajapaksa still has immense advantages, from popularity among the majority Sinhala ethnic group to control of state media.
“The president may be down from where he was, but he is certainly not out,” said Jehan Perera, a political analyst with the National Peace Council.
