INTERVIEW WITH MAHINDA RAJAPAKSE

INDIA TODAY - "India Should Play A Much Bigger Role": "With his brawny good looks, MAHINDA RAJAPAKSE could easily pass for a hero of South Indian films. He did, in fact, act in a Sinhalese film but first chose law and then politics as his main vocation. "If I had continued in films, I would have been another Karunanidhi (the Tamil Nadu chief minister)," he joked, settling down for an exclusive interview last week with Managing Editor RAJ CHENGAPPA in Colombo.


More comfortable in a lungi and shirt rather than formal wear, Rajapkse comes across as earthy and pragmatic. He takes pride in his rural upbringing in Humbanthota, a province in the Sinhala dominated south of Sri Lanka. His emergence as the top leader of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party and then as President of the nation in November last signaled a major political shift – till then the party was dominated by the Bandaranaikes the last being Chandrika Kumaratunga. At 62 Rajpakse is fit enough to lead the party for the maximum of two terms that a President can enjoy.

Rajpakse rode to power on the back of Sinhala chauvinism and the support of the two hardline parties, the Janatha Vimuthi Peramuna, JVP and the Jathika Hela Urumaya, JHU. What also helped is that the LTTE ordered the Tamils that constitute 18 per cent of the population to boycott the polls. The Tamils were expected to vote for the United National Party alliance headed by the suave Ranil Wickremesinghe. The boycott saw Rajapakse emerge as the winner with the slimmest of majorities.