Colombo, July 8 Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's younger brother Basil Rajapaksa was appointed the Finance Minister of the island nation on Thursday, a day after he was made a National List MP on Wednesday.
The long speculated Finance Minister's post was given to Basil, which was earlier held by his elder brother and former President and present Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
With his entry to the Cabinet, all four Rajapaksa brothers now hold important portfolios in the present government.
Basil is the younger brother of President Gotabaya, Prime Minister Mahinda and Irrigation Minister and State Minister of National Security & Disaster Management Chamal Rajapaksa, the eldest sibling in the family.
Basil, the architect of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) or Sri Lanka People's Front, who is a duel citizen of the US and Sri Lanka, could not contest the last general elections as the Constitution banned duel citizens from entering politics.
However, after the landmark victory of the Rajapakas in 2019, the Constitution was amended in October last year to allow duel citizens in the Parliament.
The ban on duel citizens was imposed with the 19th Amendment introduced by the previous regime. Gotabaya, who too was a US citizen, had renounced his US citizenship prior to contesting the Presidential elections in 2019.
The analysts had earlier said that the changes to the duel citizenship clause was introduced purely to allow Basil to enter the Parliament.
The youngest Rajapaksa sibling had entered politics in 1970 as a secretary to his brother Mahinda, who then won his first Parliamentary seat from his hometown Tangalle in southern Sri Lanka.
Having been in both the two main political parties in the country, Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United National Party, Basil had left for the US in 1997 before returning in 2005 after his brother Mahinda was elected the President.
Soon after the 2015 election defeat, Basil left for the US, only to return and form a new party SLPP. He was the mastermind behind the 2019 landslide election victory, which paved the way for his two brothers to become President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
There are seven politic in the close Rajapaksa family, including four Rajapaksa brothers and two of their sons Namal and Sashindara as ministers. One of their nephews, Nipuna, is an MP.
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