As Sri Lankans head to the polls to vote for a new president this Saturday, the name Gotabaya Rajapaksa will stand out among the list of candidates. To many Sinhalese, Rajapaksa is the embodiment of a country's savior — the great former defense secretary who crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers, after nearly three decades of civil war. To Sri Lanka's minorities the name Gotabaya Rajapaksa cuts to their core. Relatives of ethnic minority Tamils killed or disappeared during the conflict between the ruling Sinhalese Buddhist majority and Tamil separatists, accuse Rajapaksa of war crimes. Muslims fear his association with Buddhist hardliners, such as the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or "Buddhist Power Force," who have stirred up hatred against the community for decades. These groups have encouraged Sinhalese to boycott Muslim-owned businesses, cease renting property to Muslim families and be "unofficial policemen" against Muslim extremism. Gotabaya, the opposition candidate for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party (SLPP), will need the minority vote — the votes of Tamils, Muslims and Christians — to ensure victory on Saturday. The brother of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who ruled the island nation with an iron fist from 2005 to 2015, is challenged primarily by relative newcomer Sajith Premadasa, the current minister for housing and deputy leader of the ruling United National Party (UNP). A delicate balancing act Both men are trying to balance appealing to Sinhalese nationalists, while proving to minorities that they can protect them. For many Tamils and Muslims it's becoming a case of: the devil you know or the devil you don't. Sri Lanka's bitter civil war ended in May 2009 after the LTTE's surrender at Mullaitivu in the northeast. In the final days as the frontlines closed in on the Tigers, hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped between the two sides. They fled to government-declared "no-fire zones" which were then subjected to shelling by the Sri Lankan army. Evidence also shows medical facilities were repeatedly struck and the delivery of humanitarian aid was blocked . In a report published in 2011 the UN estimated that up to 40,000 civilians were killed, a figure the government rejected, declaring at the time that the report was "fundamentally flawed." Following the Tiger's defeat surviving Tamil civilians were rounded up and put into camps, it's reported that those taken for interrogation were never seen again. Allegations of war crimes were made against the government and the LTTE, who were accused of using civilians as human shields, but across Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksas were praised for ending the war. Gotabaya has rejected all allegations made against him and the military. The fact that he has not been held responsible for his role in the conflict has, however, angered Tamils living with the war's painful legacy.
