RAJAPAKSA AND PREMADASA REPRESENT POLAR OPPOSITES

Former Defence Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Cabinet Minister Sajith Premadasa, the two main candidates of Sri Lanka's presidential election, are known to represent two polar opposites in a country yet to recover from the wounds of a civil war and one still reeling from brutal terror attacks carried out during Easter.

The island nation's eighth presidential election is scheduled to take place on Saturday morning with an estimated 16 million people, out of the 22 million population, eligible to vote.

Although there are a record 35 candidates in the fray, it appears that only Premadasa, son of a former President killed by the separatist Tamil Tigers, and Rajapaksa, from the family that was the architect of a campaign that brought an end to the bloody war in 2009, were the main contenders for the country's highest office, Efe news reported.

Gotabaya, the candidate of the nationalist party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), is a retired 70-yearold soldier who took over Sri Lanka's defence portfolio during the period when his older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, was President (2005-2015).

He joined the Sri Lankan Army in 1971 when the former British colony, which gained its independence in 1948, was still known as Ceylon.

After retiring from the army and living seven years in the US, Gotabaya returned to Sri Lanka in 2005 to help his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa with his presidential election campaign.

Mahinda's victory directly propelled him to the position of Defence Minister, as a part of which he oversaw military operations against the LTTE guerrillas.

During his tenure, Gotabaya was the target of an attack in which a man attempted to ram the car he was travelling in with a vehicle loaded with explosives. However, the security team foiled the attack and Gotabaya escaped unscathed. Along with his brother Mahinda, Gotabaya represents a family that is seen by a section of the population as the heroes who managed to end the nearly threedecade long civil war with the LTTE.

Whereas for others they are the embodiment of the brutality of a war that left thousands dead and several thousands more missing from the Tamil minority community.

Like his brother, Gotabaya was accused of human rights offences and of involvement in several murders, including that of Lasantha Wickramatunga, a prominent journalist and editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, who was shot in his car in 2009 by masked men on motorcycles.