SINGAPORE: The emphatic win of former Defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka’s November 16 presidential elections could herald a new era for the strategically placed South Asian island nation that could model itself on the successful economic path of the Asian Tigers such as Singapore.
The electorate seemingly voted on ethnic lines with the Tamil and Muslim-dominated areas in the north and east voting heavily for his challenger Sajit Premadasa — the housing minister and son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was ironically assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1993 — and the Sinhala majority areas in the south voting solidly for Gotabaya, ensuring his victory with a large majority.
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