Brief history of the rise, fall of Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Colombo

Before he fled Sri Lanka on July 13 amid a crushing economic crisis, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the last of six members of the country's most influential family still clinging to power.

Mr. Rajapaksa and his wife flew on a military jet to the city of Male, the capital of the Maldives, the air force said.

His departure comes four days after massive crowds broke into his official residence and occupied his seaside office, and he pledged to leave the country. Protesters also stormed the residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has said he will leave once a new government is in place.

Here is a closer look at the rise and fall of Mr. Rajapaksa:

For decades, the powerful land-owning Mr. Rajapaksa family dominated local politics in their rural southern district before Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected president in 2005. Appealing to the nationalist sentiment of the island’s Buddhist-Sinhalese majority, he led Sri Lanka into a triumphant victory over ethnic Tamil rebels in 2009, ending a 26-year brutal civil war that had divided the country. His younger brother, Gotabaya, was a powerful official and military strategist in the Ministry of Defense.

Mr. Mahinda remained in office until 2015, when he lost to the Opposition led by his former aide. But the family made a comeback in 2019, when Mr. Gotabaya won the presidential election on a promise to restore security in the wake of the Easter Sunday terrorist suicide bombings that killed 290 people.

He vowed to bring back the muscular nationalism that had made his family popular with the Buddhist majority, and to lead the country out of an economic slump with a message of stability and development.