Sri Lanka Election

Key Points

• Former Defence Cheif, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, won Sri Lanka’s Presidential election on 16 November
• On 20 November, the current Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, announced his resignation
• Rajapaksa named his brother, himself a former President of the country, as Wickremesinghe’s successor
• The election period saw sporadic violent incidents occur between ethnic communities, and this is likely to endure as the Rajapaksas consolidate their power
• Ethnic polarisation was a factor in the coordinated terrorist attacks that took place on Easter Sunday, 2019.