Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban DevelopmentIn office
19 November 2005 – 9 January 2015PresidentMahinda RajapaksaMinisterMahinda RajapaksaPreceded byAsoka JayawardenaSucceeded byB. M. U. D. BasnayakePersonal detailsBornNandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa
(1949-06-20) 20 June 1949
CitizenshipSri Lanka (1949–2003, 2005–present)
United States (2003–2019)PartySri Lanka Podujana PeramunaSpouseChildren1Parent(s)Don Alwin Rajapaksa (father)
Dandina Samarasinghe née Dissanayake (mother)RelativesChamal (brother)
Mahinda (brother)
Basil (brother)EducationSri Lanka Military Academy
University of ColomboWebsitegota.lkMilitary serviceAllegianceSri LankaBranch/serviceSri Lanka Army1971–1991RankLieutenant ColonelUnitGajaba RegimentCommands1st Gajaba Regiment
General Sir John Kotelawala Defence AcademyBattles/warsSri Lankan Civil War
1987–1989 JVP insurrectionAwards

Nandasena Gotabaya RajapaksaRWP, RSP (Sinhala: නන්දසේන ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ; Tamil: நந்தசேன கோட்டாபய ராஜபக்ஷ; born 20 June 1949) is a Sri Lankan former politician and retired military officer who served as the eighth president of Sri Lanka from 18 November 2019 until his resignation on 14 July 2022. Before his presidency, he served as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development from 2005 to 2015 during the regime of his brother, president Mahinda Rajapaksa, playing a central role in the final phase of the Sri Lankan civil war.

Born to a political family from the Southern Province, Rajapaksa was educated at Ananda College, Colombo and joined the Ceylon Army in April 1971. Following basic training at the Army Training Centre, Diyatalawa, he was commissioned as signals officer and later transferred to several infantry regiments. He saw active service in the early stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War with the elite Gajaba Regiment, taking part in several major offensives such as the Vadamarachi Operation, Operation Strike Hard and Operation Thrividha Balaya, as well as counterinsurgency operations during the 1987–1989 JVP insurrection. As Defence Secretary, he oversaw the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. He was a target of an assassination attempt in December 2006 by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.

After stepping down in 2015 following his brother's electoral defeat, Rajapaksa returned to politics and ran for presidency in 2019 as a candidate of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. Campaigning on a nationalistic and security-heavy platform, he became the first Sri Lankan president with a military background and no prior elected office experience.

During his presidency, Sri Lanka faced the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently experienced a severe economic crisis, including shortages of essential goods, high inflation and difficulties servicing its external debt. In April 2022, the government announced that Sri Lanka would suspend payments on its external debt, and the country subsequently defaulted. The economic crisis contributed to widespread protests, known as the Aragalaya, which called for the resignation of the president and government. The government's response included declarations of a state of emergency, curfews and the deployment of security forces. Human rights organizations and other observers reported cases of excessive use of force, arrests of protesters and restrictions on freedom of expression during the protests. The protests ultimately led to Rajapaksa's resignation in July 2022, making him the first Sri Lankan president to resign before completing his term.