The new president, Gotabaya, comes from a family that ruled the island with an iron fist between 2005 and 2015.
April 26, 2019. Sri Lanka has just experienced one of the worst bombing campaigns in its history. Daesh claimed responsibility for six suicide attacks on churches and hotels that killed 253 people five days earlier. The inhabitants of Colombo are tetanus and the streets are almost deserted. The slightest badly parked vehicle triggers the intervention of the deminers.
Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa chose this moment to announce his presidential candidacy. Brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he is considered by many to be the architect of the victory against the Tamil Tigers in 2009. Even today, among the Cinghalese ethnic group, which represents 75% of the population, some are grateful to it for ending four decades of war against the Tamil minority, which has claimed 100,000 lives.
