Gotabaya Rajapaksa sworn-in as Sri Lanka Prez

Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya administered the oath of office to Rajapaksa at the 140 B.C Ruwanweli Seya Buddhist temple in ancient kingdom of Anuradhapura in north-central Sri Lanka.

Colombo: Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who won the November 16 presidential election, was sworn-in on Monday as the seventh Executive President of Sri Lanka at the ancient Buddhist city of Anuradhapura.

Former defense official Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been sworn in as Sri Lanka’s president and appealed to the minority Tamil and Muslim communities who voted against him to rally around him.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa sworn-in as SLanka Prez

Rajapaksa, who contested the presidential election from the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), was declared as the President on Sunday upon his victory.

Rajapaksa is credited with helping to end a long civil war and comfortably won last Saturday’s presidential election. But minorities feared his election over human rights allegations against him dating from the war.

Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya administered the oath of office to Rajapaksa at the 140 B.C Ruwanweli Seya Buddhist temple in the ancient kingdom of Anuradhapura in north-central Sri Lanka.

In his address to the nation Monday, he also pledged to give national security priority and follow a neutral foreign policy.

After the election victory, Gotabaya Rajapaksa had said: "As we usher in a new journey for Sri Lanka, we must remember that all Sri Lankans are part of this journey." In a tweet, he said he was grateful for the opportunity to be the President, not only of those who voted for him but as the President of all Sri Lankans.

"The trust you have invested in me is deeply moving and being your President will be the greatest honour of my life -Let's put our vision into action," he added. Gotabaya won the majority Sinahala votes of 6,924,255 or 52.25 percent, from a total valid 13,252,499 ballots cast in the November 16 election.

The Election:

The former Defence Secretary in the government of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa oversaw victory in the 26-year-long war against rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the North and East in 2009.

Jayantha Jayasuriya administered the oath of office to Rajapaksa

Out of 25 administrative districts, Gotabaya won 16: Kalutara, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Monaragala, Ratnapura, Badulla, Kurunegala, Puttalam, Gampaha, Kandy, Matale, Polonnaruwa, Colombo, Kegalle and Anuradhapura.

However, he was heavily defeated in Tamil and Muslim-majority Northern and Eastern Provinces. The Tamils in all five administrative districts in the Northern province Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mulaitivu, Vavuniya, Mannar, and the majority Muslims in three districts in the Eastern Province Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara voted against Rajapaksa with a lead of 80 percent in most districts.

The November 16 election was the third since the end of the civil war and the first after the April 21 Easter Sunday bombings which killed over 250 people this year.