Exclusive: Politicians never retire, says Mahinda Rajapaksa

Two years ago, Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed. Its all-powerful Rajapaksa family were hounded out of power. President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa fled the country while PM Mahinda Rajapaksa – earlier Sri Lanka’s most revered president for ending the 30-year-long civil war, resigned and was whisked away with his family to safety, even as angry crowds went on a violent rampage through Colombo. He has not spoken to any international media concern in the past 2 years. Just days before tomorrow’s presidential poll, 78-year old Mahinda Rajapaksa, broke his silence in an exclusive interview with Padma Rao Sundarji for The Times of India, at his residence in Colombo.
Q: This election is your son, Namal Rajapaksa’s political debut. People are saying he doesn’t stand a chance of winning.
MR: They can say what they like. He may be young, but he is an attorney, and has been in parliament since 2019. Namal has a long political future ahead of him and he has learned a lot just by being in a political family.

Q: Your Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP) is a very strong faction in parliament. There are rumours that even if Namal doesn’t win the presidential election, he could be named prime minister.

MR: Well, if parliament is dissolved after the presidential election, talks and consensus -as is the procedure, and if our party returns to power yet again, then sure - even that is possible.

Q: But after the chaos of 2022 when your entire family was chased out of power, do you really feel that your SLPP will be re-elected to parliament?

MR: In these 2 years, I have travelled around the country frequently. And this is the feeling I get when I speak to people. There is a groundswell of support for us.

Q: From 2005 right up to 2019, and despite the many allegations of corruption and nepotism, you remained the country’s most popular politician, largely for having ended the war. So what happened 2 years ago? Why did you suddenly fall from grace?

MR: Look, the country was totally devastated after 30 years of civil war. After we defeated the terror group (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) in 2009, we developed the country, we took it forward. We built roads, highways, houses, railways, airports, ports. So why were we suddenly driven out in 2022? Well, that’s Sri Lankan politics.People vote for you, then they bring you down again. Now, they might vote for us yet again. It is Sri Lankan psychology. We want change, but then we keep changing over and over again, even when things are normal.The anger was not against the Rajapaksa family, but against the system. Otherwise you wouldn’t have seen three Rajapaksas in parliament. But yes, I will say this. My brother Gotabhaya was not a politician, he was a bureaucrat. He made some wrong decisions – like banning chemical fertilizer. That was the main problem.

Q : Opinion polls are showing Marxist-Leninist, Anura Dissanayake, in the lead for tomorrow’s election. Curiously, he says it was not your brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to blame for the economic crisis, but the current interim president, Ranil Wickremesinghe. Why is he saying that?

MR: We have said from the beginning, that it is during Mr Wickremesinghe’s earlier tenure as PM from 2015-2019, that loans were taken and had to be paid back. At that time, Dissanayake was part of Wickremesinghe’s government and said nothing. Now, at least he seems to have made that realization.Maybe he has matured now !

Q: The Tamil North and East say they are fed up with all Sinhala majority presidents. They want nothing short of a referendum to be held in their provinces to decide their own political future.

MR: Referendums cannot be restricted to any one part of the country alone. One has to take a holistic approach- they have to be held all over the country.

Q: Dissanayake also says he will throw out a wind turbine project awarded to India’s Adani group, if he becomes president, as it is riddled with ‘corruption’. Is Sri Lanka going to start acting hostile towards Indian investment again?

MR: When we started building the Sampur coal plant along with India’s NTPC, they said exactly the same thing. This is just poll rhetoric. We Sri Lankans have a bad habit of criticizing global investors. As far as we are concerned and whether it comes from India, China or any other country, we believe in, and encourage investment.

Q: Current president Wickremesinghe was supported by you, when he first took over as interim president. Then you withdrew support. Will he win this election on the plank of stability?

MR: Ranil certainly is a person who can fight. But our candidate, Namal will win.

Q: And will you go into retirement?

MR: No politician ever retires. As long as my people want me, I will continue in one form or another.

(Padma Rao Sundarji is a veteran foreign correspondent and author of “Sri Lanka: The New Country”, HarperCollins 2015)