Rajapakse, MahindaRajapakse also spelled Rajapaksa  ( born Nov. 18, 1945 , Weeraketiya, Sri L.Sri LankaSri Lankan politician who served as president of Sri Lanka (2005– ).

Rajapakse was born into a large upper-caste family and brought up as a Buddhist. Throughout much of his childhood, his father, D.A. Rajapakse, served as a member of the Sri Lankan parliament, holding the Beliatta seat from 1947 to 1965. Rajapakse did not pursue undergraduate study, but he received a law degree from Colombo Law College in 1974.

In 1970, at age 24, Rajapakse became the youngest-ever member of the Sri Lankan parliament when he was elected to the seat that his father had vacated just five years earlier. After losing the seat in 1977, he focused on his law career until reentering the parliament in 1989, this time representing the Hambantota district (1989–2005). Viewed as a centre-left politician, he became known as a defender of human rights—a reputation that would later be undermined during his presidency when Sri Lanka was recognized as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for dissenting journalists. Rajapakse served as labour minister (1994–2001) and minister of fisheries and aquatic resources (1997–2001) under Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga. In 2004 Kumaratunga appointed Rajapakse prime minister, and the following year she announced her endorsement of him as her successor.

Rajapakse was elected president in 2005 as the candidate of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). At the time, the Sri Lankan government was in the midst of ongoing peace talks and a precarious ceasefire cease-fire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers, the guerrilla organization that sought to establish an independent Tamil state in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, Rajapakse announced his intention in 2006 to eradicate the separatist group, which had operated as both a rebel army and a de facto government in parts of Sri Lanka for more than 20 years. In 2009 the Sri Lankan army defeated the Tamil forces, ending the country’s long civil war. Rajapakse’s popularity surged, but international observers criticized his army’s brutality in the war’s final battle, which had led to many civilian deaths. Throughout Rajapakse’s presidency he worked to develop the country’s business and tourism industries sectors as well as its infrastructure. His brothers—Gotabhaya, Basil, and Chamal—held prominent positions in his administration, serving as, respectively, secretary of defense, special adviser, and ports and aviation minister. Their support was instrumental in the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, but the concentration of one family in the country’s most powerful posts led to elicited charges of nepotism from the president’s detractors.

In late 2009, four years into his six-year term and hoping to capitalize on his popularity following victory over the Tamil Tigers, Rajapakse called for a presidential election in early 2010. Retired general Sarath Fonseka, who commanded the Sri Lankan army in the final battle against the Tigers, emerged as his main opposition. In the January election Rajapakse easily defeated Fonseka, winning 58 percent of the vote, though the general protested the results. Despite questions arising from Rajapakse’s possible misuse of state funds for his campaign, independent observers held that no voting fraud had taken place. The following month Fonseka was arrested on charges of corruption and of engaging in political activity while on active military duty. Immediately following the arrest, Rajapakse dissolved the parliament in advance of early parliamentary elections. The vote, held in early April, gave the UPFA a strong majority of seats in the parliament but not the . Although the UPFA failed to secure the two-thirds majority that would have allowed Rajapakse necessary to amend the constitution, in September an amendment was approved by parliament, with the support of some opposition members, that removed limits on the number of terms a president could serve, granted judicial immunity to the president, and gave the president broader powers in making governmental appointments.