{"id":116300,"date":"2021-07-19T22:54:37","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T04:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=116300"},"modified":"2021-07-19T15:24:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T22:24:17","slug":"rajapaksa-to-seek-second-term-as-sri-lanka-crisis-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/19\/rajapaksa-to-seek-second-term-as-sri-lanka-crisis-deepens\/","title":{"rendered":"Rajapaksa to seek second term as Sri Lanka crisis deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy MailOnline<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"Gotabaya<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gotabaya Rajapaksa previously said he would be a one-term president<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced Monday he would stand for a second term, reversing a promise to only stay for five years, media reports said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 72-year-old nationalist leader told top media executives he needed more time to fix Sri Lanka’s worsening economic crisis, reports said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his triumphant 2019 election campaign, Rajapaksa said he would be a one-term president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reaffirmed in March last year that one five-year term was sufficient to implement his ambitious manifesto, triggering a succession struggle within the powerful Rajapaksa family that dominates the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elections are not due until 2024, but Rajapaksa now says he needs five more years to implement his “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” manifesto after the economy contracted by a record 3.6 percent in his first year. The government has banned many imports because of a foreign currency crunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajapaksa “today declared that he would contest for a second term”, the pro-government The Morning website quoted him as telling media owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other media also reported on the comments, which set off new speculation about the intentions of the ruling family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elevation of the president’s youngest brother Basil, 70, as finance minister earlier this month was widely seen as a move to groom him for the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basil was thought to have edged out his nephew, Namal, the minister of sports and eldest son of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, to be the next family leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Another U-turn and maybe this squashes Basil’s chances for the next presidency,” said Jamila Husain, a deputy editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper, on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since his election, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has tightened the family grip on power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the entry of Basil, the cabinet now has five members of the ruling family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eldest brother Chamal, 78, is minister of irrigation. Several Rajapaksa family members hold junior ministerial positions and other key posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basil was described as “Mr Ten Percent” in a 2007 US embassy cable published by the WikiLeaks organisation, because of commissions he allegedly took from government contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has denied any wrongdoing and inquiries failed to find any evidence to back charges he siphoned off millions of dollars from state coffers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basil is a dual US-Sri Lankan citizen, but Gotabaya removed constitutional provisions which blocked him from standing in a parliamentary election last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy MailOnline Gotabaya Rajapaksa previously said he would be a one-term president Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced Monday he would stand for a second term, reversing a promise to only stay for five years, media reports said. The 72-year-old nationalist leader told top media executives he needed more time to fix Sri Lanka’s worsening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}