13 November 2009 / REUTERS, COLOMBIA
Sri Lanka’s top general, who engineered the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after a 25-year war, has resigned, sources said on Thursday, amid speculation he will run for president as an opposition candidate.
Gen. Sarath Fonseka is expected to challenge his commander in chief, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in an election due to be held by April. If Fonseka enters the race, analysts expect it to weaken Rajapaksa’s core voter base and erode the incumbent’s present monopoly on claiming political capital from the war victory. “Gen. Fonseka had submitted his resignation to the president,” a military source told Reuters, asking not to named. Another defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said the resignation had been sent. Two other sources confirmed the same. Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is the president’s brother and served as army officer in combat alongside Fonseka, told Reuters he did not know about the resignation. “The president didn’t tell me,” he said. In July, Rajapaksa promoted the then-army commander to a newly created post, chief of defence staff, which many analysts saw as neutralizing the wide powers Fonseka had been given in wartime.
