At the height of their power, four brothers from Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa dynasty held the presidency and the prime minister’s office as well as the finance, interior and defence portfolios, among others. But just when the Rajapaksa clan seemed invincible, an economic crisis of their own making led to their undoing. But does that spell the end of South Asia’s most powerful political family?
On August 12, 2020, an extraordinary display of family power was under way at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth, one of the most sacred Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka, in the central city of Kandy, the political capital of ancient kings in the island nation.
