Dilrukshi Handunnetti

Gotabaya Ra­japak­sa’s exit ends the clan’s rule af­ter more than 20 years as the na­tion bat­tles its worst eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

The ad­min­is­tra­tion fo­cused on con­sol­i­dat­ing pow­er in gov­ern­ment, ig­nor­ing the fi­nan­cial and po­lit­i­cal crises.

Pro­test­ers in Colom­bo de­mand jus­tice on the third an­niver­sary of dev­as­tat­ing at­tacks in sev­er­al church­es and ho­tels.

Gotabaya Ra­japak­sa, cred­it­ed with de­feat­ing Tamil rebels and ac­cused of war crimes, is con­sid­ered a po­lar­is­ing fig­ure.

Cli­mate of fear pre­vails over the is­land na­tion a day af­ter the worst at­tacks in a decade kill 290 peo­ple.

Rifts re­main af­ter dead­ly anti-Mus­lim ri­ots in 2014 killed four and caused tens of thou­sands of dol­lars in dam­age.

Vic­tims in Aranayake still in shock a week af­ter mas­sive mud­slides killed more than 100 peo­ple with an­oth­er 100 miss­ing.

The for­mer pres­i­dent will con­test Mon­day’s poll for a seat in Sri Lan­ka’s par­lia­ment.

New Sri Lankan of­fi­cials say do­mes­tic in­ves­ti­ga­tion is on the ta­ble, but in­ter­na­tion­al in­quiry out of the ques­tion.

Brazen elec­tion bid by promi­nent de­fec­tor may not end in vic­to­ry, but it has shak­en the na­tion’s po­lit­i­cal foun­da­tion.