Word: mahinda
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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After winning the war, Sarath Fonseka seems to have lost the battle. The former chief of Sri Lanka's army chose to run against his ex-boss, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in last month's elections and was defeated by nearly 2 million votes - a few complaints of polling irregularities notwithstanding. On Feb. 8, Fonseka was seized by military police for allegedly conspiring to launch a coup, a charge his supporters say is trumped up. The arrest has deepened concerns over the increasing heavy-handedness of Rajapaksa's rule, which has seen allegations of human-rights abuses as well...
Upending predictions that Sri Lanka's first election since the end of its civil war would be a close fight, President Mahinda Rajapaksa easily beat his challenger, retired army commander General Sarath Fonseka, a former ally in the military victory over the separatist Tamil Tigers. The results of the largely peaceful election, announced Jan. 27, showed the President leading with 58% of the vote. Fonseka immediately rejected the results, alleging vote rigging, and claimed his life was under threat from the government...
...government has previously accused Fonseka of organizing a coup and planning to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapaksa and two of his brothers, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and member of parliament Basil Rajapaksa. Fonseka, who was once a powerful ally of Rajapaksa, led the military campaign that defeated the Tamil separatist insurgency last May. Soon after, he was named Chief of Defence Staff - a move that sidelined him and left him without any effective command. Fonseka later fell out with the Rajapaksa government and put himself forward as the opposition candidate in last month's elections. (See a bio of Mahinda Rajapaksa...
...ruling party candidate, Mahinda Rajapakse, asked the people to show gratitude for bringing the 30-year war to an end, and to strengthen his mandate to continue his policies. A coalition of opposition parties offered former Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka as their common candidate and asked for a mandate to start a reconciliation process with the Tamils in the north. They also demanded the abolishment of the executive presidency, which is powerful enough to overrule decisions made by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, in order to empower the Parliament to be more responsible to the people by enacting...
...people in many ways: it provides leaders with a golden opportunity to censure the media, an opportunity to instill fear among people, a justification to arrest people on charges of conspiracy, and a reason to align with corrupt foreign governments that wait for an opportunity to exploit the situation. Mahinda Rajapakse’s government has already taken measures to block several web based news sources from people living in Sri Lanka. The government has already started to arrest newspaper editors...