Profile: Mahinda Rajapaksa

8 January 2015, Last updated at 03:22 ET, Source - BBC News

Mahinda Rajapaksa has relied on staunch support from the Sinhalese majority

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who faces his toughest electoral challenge on Thursday, is credited by many Sinhalese people with winning the war against Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for more than 20 years for self-rule.

But his tenure in power - especially at the time of the final defeat of the rebels in 2009 - has been dogged by allegations of serious human rights abuses.

While the president and his supporters argue that he had to act firmly and decisively to defeat one of the world's most dangerous terror groups, critics say that he presided over the indiscriminate shelling of civilians at the end of the war and has done little or nothing to stop the alleged rape and torture of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan security forces since it concluded.

Furthermore it is alleged that, since 2009, he has made no real effort to seriously engage with the Tamil community - who comprise about 15% of the population - instead opting to order a wave of repression directed at those who question his authority or the authority of his government.

Mr Rajapaksa is a former lawyer who has described himself on his website as "a rebel with a cause". His core support is rural, conservative, Buddhist and dominated by the Sinhalese majority.

Mr Rajapaksa has been in power since 2005 and is South Asia's longest-serving leader. He is seeking an unprecedented third stint in office, having defeated his last challenger - former army chief Sarath Fonseka - to win re-election to a second term in January 2010.

Gen Fonseka was later jailed for implicating the government in war crimes.

The defeat of the Tamil Tigers was celebrated, but came at a huge cost

Many Tamils blame Mr Rajapaksa for the deaths of loved ones during the war

In both triumphs, Mr Rajapaksa's critics say he displayed a ruthless streak and a capacity to condone or overlook the use of violence if it served his political purposes. The president has consistently denied this, arguing that at the end of the war it was the rebels who failed to separate combatants from civilians, thereby exposing innocent people to incoming fire.

Whatever the truth, his hold on power has not until now been seriously challenged either from within his own party or from the ranks of the opposition. Reports abound that he is grooming his eldest son, Namal, to succeed him.

Pitted against him this time, however, is a former cabinet minister and ally - Maithripala Sirisena - who has the backing of many voters and main opposition parties. The result is expected to be very close.

Mr Rajapaksa has used his time in power to consolidate his position: The constitution has been changed to allow him to serve a third term and three brother hold influential positions, leading to accusations he is running the country like a family firm.

The dynasty effectively controls much of the national budget.

President Rajapaksa is accused of condoning a crackdown on dissent and his supporters are alleged to have been involved in the murder of journalists who were critical of the government, claims rejected by the authorities.

The most high profile example of this was the murder of newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge in January 2009.

His case was all the more remarkable because he wrote an editorial - published posthumously - which accused President Rajapaksa's government of being responsible for his death.

The president faces his biggest ever electoral challenge in January's presidential election

"In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other president before you," Mr Wickrematunge's editorial said in words addressed directly at the president.

The president and his supporters strenuously denied any involvement in the murder.

His tenure in power has also been characterised by impressive economic growth while embarking on several new infrastructure projects including the construction of a new section of motorway connecting Colombo's international airport with its political and commercial centre.

His supporters say that continued economic growth has also brought other benefits, ensuring for example that food supplies remained constant after the devastating 2004 tsunami.

When money from the West looked as if it may dry up because of concerns over human rights abuses towards the end of the civil war, the president tried to offset this by making overtures to China.

Some $360m (£226m) of borrowed Chinese money helped build a huge deep-water port at Hambantota - near the president's birth place - on the southern coast. Other major projects include a 35,000-seat cricket stadium, a convention centre, a new international airport and a broad-gauge railway.

Mr Rajapaksa, 69, became the country's youngest ever parliamentarian in 1970 at the age of 24.

The president even has a cricket ground - the Mahinda Rajapaksa stadium - named after him

He went on to become leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, prime minister in 2004, and then president in 2005.

He comes from a political family - his father, DA Rajapaksa, represented the same region of Hambantota from 1947 to 1965.

When Mr Rajapaksa became prime minister, he was seen as someone who favoured a negotiated settlement with the Tamil Tiger rebels.

But after signing a poll deal with two nationalist parties, his stance became increasingly hard-line.

He launched his campaign for the presidency by rejecting the rebels' demands for Tamil autonomy.

After four years of bitter fighting, President Rajapaksa hailed the defeat of the rebels as a vindication of his tough and uncompromising stance against them.

His cause has been helped by his image as a folksy, back-slapping man of the masses. The president is renowned for remembering peoples' names, and stripping to the waist when he visits temples.

He will be hoping the Sinhala heartlands, where the vote will be decided, reward him for victory in war and economic progress.

Sri Lanka's Maithripala Sirisena looks to have toppled Rajapaksa

8 January 2015, Last updated at 22:24 ET, Source - BBC News

Maithripala Sirisena - friend turned foe of the president

Maithripala Sirisena was one of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's closest allies - until his surprise announcement that he planned to run against him in Thursday's election.

The president's supporters were quick to label him a traitor and knew his candidacy spelt danger for their man, who was seeking an unprecedented third term.

Mr Rajapaksa has now conceded defeat to Mr Sirisena, saying he intends to ensure a smooth transition of power.

Mr Sirisena was one of the most powerful men in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party before he defected along with a number of other ruling party figures.

Coming from a farming family in the Sinhalese heartland, he appeals to the same demographic as the man he sought to unseat.

Ranged behind him are a large opposition coalition that kept his name secret until the final moment.

Mr Rajapaksa says he was stabbed in the back over a dinner of pancakes

The BBC's former Sri Lanka correspondent, Charles Haviland, says Mr Sirisena has nothing of the president's jovial, folksy charisma.

But it is he who has the momentum and a government hitherto seen as impregnable seems to be floundering, our correspondent says.

His unwieldy coalition includes the main opposition UNP and a former president who has apologised for the past treatment of minority Tamils.

It also embraces a hard-line Buddhist nationalist party - a defector from the ruling coalition - that completely denies the well-attested evidence that thousands of Tamil civilians died in the final bombardments of the war, our correspondent adds.

Mr Sirisena has made no mention of minority rights or of any political solution to the island's ethnic conflict and has ruled out allowing any political leader to be prosecuted for alleged war crimes.

Announcing his candidacy in November, he said Sri Lanka was heading towards a dictatorship and was blighted by rampant corruption and a breakdown in law and order.

Mr Sirisena say he wants to restore law and order

"The entire economy and every aspect of society is controlled by one family," he said. Three brothers of the president and his son all occupy influential positions.

Mahinda Rajapaksa said bitterly that Mr Sirisena had defected after the two men shared a meal of the popular Sri Lankan comfort food, "hoppers" or rice pancakes.

He said his rival "eats hoppers in the night and then stabs you in the back in the morning".

Mr Sirisena later said he felt sorry for the president during the meal but he couldn't remain with a leader "who had plundered the country, government and natural wealth".

Maithripala Sirisena comes from the Sinhalese-dominated North Central Province which was seen as "border country" when the Tamil Tigers controlled the North.

Aged just 19 in 1971 he was jailed for 15 months for alleged involvement in the first insurrection by the extreme-left People's Liberation Front (JVP).

Until November 2014 he was general secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and health minister.

Many Tamils have felt marginalised since the end of the civil war

He was almost killed in October 2008 when the convoy he was in was attacked by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber in a Colombo suburb. One person died.

The 63-year-old has painted himself as a clean-living champion of the rural masses. He opposes smoking and drinking alcohol.

He hopes to capitalise on disquiet at rising living costs and at a culture of political thuggery and violence.

The Sinhalese Buddhist majority accounts for 70% of Sri Lanka's 21 million people - and he looks set to secure a large share of their votes.

He also appeals to many members of Tamil, Muslim and Christian minorities who have felt increasingly marginalised under the Rajapaksa presidency.

Mr Sirisena has been quoted as saying he was unhappy with Mr Rajapaksa from 2006 onwards - but this raises the question of why he stayed so long in a government whose activities he now criticises, and of whether he is perhaps implicated in some of its excesses.

Reports suggested the momentum is with the challenger as the vote drew near

He says he was acting defence minister during the last two weeks of the war and has used this to try and entrench his appeal among the Sinhalese voter base.

This has played badly with some Tamils as there is still much residual support for the Tamil Tigers among that community. The main Tamil National Alliance is backing him however.

For many, though, Mr Sirisena represented the only way of unseating President Rajapaksa - and, questions aside, that was his trump card.