CDS (II) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 119 of 120

Correct — C, Mahinda Rajapaksa. He was sworn in as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on 9 August 2020, four days after his party's landslide in the parliamentary election of 5 August, and the ceremony was described as his fourth term in the office. His earlier premierships ran from April 2004 to November 2005, briefly from October to December 2018, and from November 2019. The oath was administered by his younger brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had been elected President in November 2019 — the arrangement that put the presidency and the premiership in the hands of two brothers at once. Between the first and last of those premierships Mahinda served two terms as President, from November 2005 to January 2015, the period in which the long civil war with the LTTE was brought to an end in 2009.

• (a)Gotabaya Rajapaksa — Mahinda's younger brother, and in August 2020 the President of Sri Lanka, not the Prime Minister. He is the man who administered the oath rather than the man who took it. He had been Defence Secretary during Mahinda's presidency before winning the 2019 presidential election.
• (b)Basil Rajapaksa — Another brother, long the family's principal political organiser and later Finance Minister. He has never been Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
• (d)Namal Rajapaksa — Mahinda's son, a member of parliament who entered the cabinet as a young minister in 2020. The stem's phrase 'for the fourth time' rules him out at once — a politician of his generation could not have held the office four times.

Sri Lanka has a semi-presidential system in which an executive President and a Prime Minister answerable to Parliament share power, and the balance between the two offices has shifted repeatedly with constitutional amendments. The nineteenth amendment of 2015 curtailed presidential power and strengthened the Prime Minister and Parliament; the twentieth, passed in October 2020 shortly after this exam, reversed much of that and restored authority to the President.

Every option shares a surname, so the item is testing whether a candidate can tell members of the same political family apart — a favourite CDS device for neighbourhood politics. Three anchors do it: Gotabaya was President in 2020, Mahinda was Prime Minister, and Basil and Namal held neither office. The phrase 'for the fourth time' is itself a clue, since it points to the only Rajapaksa with a long enough career. The position has moved sharply since: Sri Lanka's foreign-exchange and debt crisis of 2022 brought mass protests, Mahinda resigned as Prime Minister on 9 May 2022, and Gotabaya left the country and resigned the presidency in July 2022, ending the family's hold on both offices.

• Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on 9 August 2020, after the parliamentary election of 5 August 2020.
• The oath was administered by his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had been elected President in November 2019.
• Mahinda had earlier been Prime Minister from April 2004 to November 2005 and again in 2018 and from November 2019.
• He served as President of Sri Lanka from November 2005 to January 2015; the civil war with the LTTE ended in 2009 during that period.
• He resigned as Prime Minister on 9 May 2022 amid the economic crisis, and Gotabaya resigned the presidency in July 2022.

• Confusing Gotabaya with Mahinda — in 2020 one was President and the other Prime Minister.
• Presenting the 2020 position as current; both brothers had left office by mid-2022.
• Assuming the Prime Minister is the more powerful office in Sri Lanka; the executive President generally is, and the 2020 amendment strengthened that further.

As a who-holds-which-office item on a neighbouring country, or as part of a statements set on Sri Lanka's constitution or its relations with India.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who was the President of Sri Lanka at the time of the parliamentary election of August 2020?

  • (a)Maithripala Sirisena
  • (b)Gotabaya Rajapaksa
  • (c)Ranil Wickremesinghe
  • (d)Chandrika Kumaratunga

  Answer(b) Gotabaya Rajapaksa — elected President in November 2019, and the man who administered the prime ministerial oath to his brother Mahinda in August 2020.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The armed conflict between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE came to an end in the year

  • (a)2005
  • (b)2007
  • (c)2009
  • (d)2011

  Answer(c) 2009 — during Mahinda Rajapaksa's first term as President of Sri Lanka.