Basil Rajapaksa

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Basil Rajapaksa is a Sri Lankan-American politician who is not only known for being Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister during the 2022 Sri Lankan economic crisis but also for being the younger brother of the former Sri Lankan Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa.According to several sources, Basil Rajapaksa’s political career began in the late 1960s when he helped his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, a member of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP), during the 1970 parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka following which Basil became a member of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP).Basil Rajapaksa contested his first general elections in Sri Lanka from the Mulkirigala Electorate in 1977, where he lost the elections to a United National Party (UNP) candidate.In 1977, Basil left the SLFP and joined the UNP, where, reportedly, Basil cultivated a close relationship with J. R. Jayewardene, who served as the President of Sri Lanka from 1978 to 1989.In 1994, despite being a member of the UNP, Basil Rajapaksa openly campaigned for Mahinda Rajapaksa.After leaving the United National Party (UNP) in 1997, Basil Rajapaksa left Sri Lanka along with his wife and children to settle down in the US. Basil Rajapaksa’s passport, which was issued to him by the United States of America.To campaign for Mahinda Rajapaksa’s 2005 Presidential elections, Basil Rajapaksa left the US and came back to Sri Lanka, and after Mahinda secured a victory in the Presidential elections, he appointed Basil as his advisor.In 2007, Basil Rajapaksa became a member of the Sri Lankan parliament from the National List.In 2010, Basil Rajapaksa secured a total of 4,00,000 votes in the Sri Lankan parliamentary elections. He contested the elections from the Gampaha district. Since the Sri Lankan constitution did not allow dual citizenship holders to contest the Sri Lankan general elections, the then President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa amended the constitution to allow Basil to contest the elections.In 2016, he left SLFP and joined Mahinda’s party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).