Who is Mahinda Rajapaksa, the man Sri Lanka blames for its economic crisis

The Sri Lankan economy has suffered greatly as a result of Mahinda government's measures to decrease taxes and restrict all chemical fertilisers used in agriculture, as well as the COVID-19 outbreak.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was until recently in-charge of the island nation's present economic turmoil. On Monday evening, he resigned from the post amid the ongoing economic crisis. 

Rajapaksa's supporters were mostly a conservative and Buddhist majority population who supported his political ambitions until the country was rocked by a developing economic crisis. The Sri Lankan economy has suffered greatly as a result of his government's measures to decrease taxes and restrict all chemical fertilisers used in agriculture, as well as the COVID-19 outbreak.

He was President of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015, Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2004 and 2018 to 2019, and Minister of Finance from 2005 to 2015 and 2019 to 2021.

Rajapaksa was born in 1945 in Weeraketiya, a town in southern Sri Lanka, the second of six brothers (three of whom are now in national politics) and three sisters. 

He was initially elected to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) as a member of parliament from the Hambantota district in 1970. He graduated from Colombo Law College and practised law in Tangalle, Sri Lanka, from 1977 to 1994.

Rajapaksa was elected President of the SLFP for the first time in 2005. During his first tenure, which ended in 2010, he was noted for his efforts to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which were defeated in May 2009. He was elected president in 2010, and his second term ended in 2015.

Rajapaksa, who was accused of corruption in both prior campaigns, lost the 2015 presidential race to his old ally Maithripala Sirisena. Between December 2018 to November 2019, he was the head of the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).

Rajapaksa became Prime Minister in 2019 after his brother, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, won the presidential election.