Gotabaya Rajapaksa (born 1949) was President of Sri Lanka from November 2019 until July 2022. A former army officer, he served as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence from 2005 to 2015, during the final phase of the civil war.
He won the 2019 presidential election with a substantial majority. His presidency was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and by an economic crisis marked by foreign exchange shortages, fuel and power shortages, and a sovereign default in April 2022. Following sustained public protests he resigned in July 2022, the first Sri Lankan president to leave office in that way.