A few weeks before Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka, one of advisers wrote a blog article, drawing similarities between the Aragalaya movement in the country and the Iranian revolution and the Egypt uprising, and showed it to him. He had a smile on his face as a sign of acceptance.
The Iranian revolution and the people uprising was his thesis paper as he worked as a cadet officer in the Sri Lankan army in the 1970s. He even told his adviser how he used to listen to BBC radio to know how the Iranian revolution unfolded and how it toppled the monarchy in 1979. The iron-fisted reformer who always followed military discipline knew what was coming, but never expected that he would have an unceremonial exit and later return to his home country within seven weeks of self-exile.
Once a terminator and a war hero, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former president of Sri Lanka, has come back to his home country. He was accorded a warm welcome at the Bandaranaike airport by several parliamentarians and other well-wishers of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). The security at the airport was beefed up on Friday, hours before he landed. A motor cavalcade led him to an official residence at Colombo-7. It may be recalled that his private residence at Mirihana on the outskirts of Colombo was set on fire by the protesters in March when the Aragalaya movement began gaining strength. “As a former president of the country, he is entitled to security. A special unit will also be set up to provide security to him, as there were huge protests and violence, before he left the country,” a senior official in Sri Lanka’s defence ministry told THE WEEK.
Gotabaya had fled the country on July 9, along with his wife and two bodyguards, as the protesters swarmed his official residence. Gotabaya first landed in Maldives, only to move to Singapore and then to Thailand. But, in all the three countries, he wasn’t allowed to move out of the hotel and was surrounded by security personnel.
Back in Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksas have plans for a political comeback. While former finance minister Basil has been allowed by the Supreme Court in Sri Lanka to travel to the US for four months, Gotabaya’s return is expected to alter political equations in the country as well as in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s SLPP. Sources close to the Rajapaksas say that Gotabaya wants to get into the parliament as an MP in the national list. Sources say that any one of the MPs in the national list will be asked to resign and Gotabaya may be nominated. As he was in exile, many of the countries, sources in Sri Lanka say, were not willing to grant him visa. By being an active parliamentarian, it is said, that he could get the diplomatic hurdles cleared to fly to the US or any other country. Incidentally, there were news reports of him trying to apply for a green card to settle in the US.
Apparently, there were also news reports about one of the SLPP’s national list members of parliament, Sita Arambepola, saying that she was willing to resign if Gotabaya wanted to get into the parliament. She has said that no such request has been made by SLPP or anyone else so far. However, she hasn’t denied the reports.
Incidentally, even as Gotabaya touched down in Colombo, Mahinda and his son Namal were seen participating in a workshop in Colombo, organised by the SLPP Leadership Academy for political excellence - a workshop organised for the next generation and the Sinhala youth to get into politics.
However, the members of the Aragalaya movement blame it on president Ranil Wickremesinghe for paving the way for the return of Gotabaya. But it remains to be seen if Gotabaya’s return will reignite public anger.
