Mahinda Rajapaksa, Rajapaksa also spelled Rajapakse, (born November 18, 1945, Weeraketiya, Sri Lanka), Sri Lankan politician who served as president of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015, during which time he oversaw the end of the country’s civil war (1983–2009), and later served as prime minister (2019–22).   Early life and political career Rajapaksa was born into a large upper-caste family and was brought up as a Buddhist. Throughout much of his childhood, his father, D.A. Rajapaksa, served as a member of the Sri Lankan parliament, holding the Beliatta seat from 1947 to 1965. Rajapaksa did not pursue undergraduate study, but he received a law degree from Colombo Law College in 1974.   In 1970, at age 24, Rajapaksa became Sri Lanka’s youngest-ever member of Parliament when he was elected to the seat that his father had vacated just five years earlier. After losing the seat in 1977, he focused on his law career until reentering Parliament in 1989, this time representing the Hambantota district (1989–2005). Viewed as a centre-left politician, he became known as a defender of human rights—a reputation that would later be undermined during his presidency when Sri Lanka was recognized as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for dissenting journalists. Rajapaksa served as labour minister (1994–2001) and minister of fisheries and aquatic resources (1997–2001) under Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga. In 2004 Kumaratunga appointed Rajapaksa prime minister, and the following year she announced her endorsement of him as her successor.