[6] He previously served as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development from 2005 to 2015 under the administration of his elder brother former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

His father, D. A. Rajapaksa, was a prominent politician, independence agitator, Member of Parliament, Deputy Speaker and Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land in Wijeyananda Dahanayake's government.

On his return, he was assigned as the signals officer to the Task Force Anti Illicit Immigration, based at its headquarters in Palaly, under the command of Colonel Tissa Weeratunga.

During this time he attended the senior staff and tactics course at the Panagoda Cantonment and took part in preparing a report on encroachment of state lands in the north and eastern provinces for the Defense Ministry.

In January 1991, he was appointed Deputy Commandant of the Sir John Kotelawala Defence Academy and held the position until his early retirement from the army on 1 November 1991.

He subsequently migrated to the United States in 1998 and worked at Loyola Law School[16] in Los Angeles, U.S., as a Systems Integrator and Unix Solaris Administrator.

[23] Results of his work were remarkable as Colombo became to the top of the list of fast developing cities in the world in 2015 by an annual travel study by MasterCard.

[citation needed] The former LTTE commander Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, better known as Colonel Karuna, told British authorities that Rajapaksa was instrumental in arranging for him to be issued with a false diplomatic passport so that he could flee to Britain in September 2007.

[30] involving the "duplicitous" purchase of the Mikoyan MiG-27 Ukrainian Fighter Aircraft between Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his cousin Udayanga Weeratunga and the Sri Lanka Air Force.

[31] On 18 October 2007, attorney-at-law Ali Sabry (Sri Lankan politician) and lawyers representing Rajapaksa wrote to Wickrematunge threatening to sue him for defamation for Rs.

[51] Bandara Bulathwatte, a key suspect in the murder of Lasantha, was given a diplomatic post in Thailand at the request of Gotabaya Rajapaksa near the 2010 presidential election.

[57][58] On 10 January 2023, Gotabaya and his brother and former president Mahinda Rajapaksa were sanctioned by Canada for "gross and systematic violations of human rights" during the Sri Lankan civil war.

"[67] In May 2015, The Sunday Leader tendered an unconditional apology to Gotabaya Rajapaksa for a series of articles regarding the purchase of MIG 27 airplanes for the Sri Lanka Air Force.

[72][73][74][75] In March 2015, a Sri Lankan court imposed a travel ban on Rajapaksa over allegations he used a commercial floating armory as a private arsenal.

[78] UNP MP Mangala Samaraweera claimed that Gotabaya's son illegally occupied a house rented for a consulate in Los Angeles and caused millions of rupees in losses to the state.

[81][82] In September 2018 Director of the Anti Corruption Movement revealed a conspiracy to assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa because the duo are against the drug trade.

[85][86] Fuelling speculation even more, Rajapaksa appointed a communications strategist and activist, Milinda Rajapaksha, as his official media spokesperson in August 2018.

Rajapaksa alleged that the case filed against him by Wickrematunge's daughter was "politically motivated"[93] by the United National Party to stop him from contesting the presidential election that year.

Rajapaksa won a majority in the predominant Sinhalese areas of the island which included the districts of Kalutara, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Monaragala, Ratnapura, Badulla, Kurunegala, Puttalam, Gampaha, Kandy, Matale, Polonnaruwa Colombo, Kegalle and Anuradhapura, while Premadasa gained a majority in areas dominated by Tamil and Muslim minorities, which had been effected by the civil war.

[103][104] On 20 November, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had agreed to resign for Rajapaksa to form a caretaker government until fresh parliamentary elections can be held after the President can constitutionally dissolve parliament in March 2020.

[106] Thus, Sri Lanka became only the second nation in the world after Poland to have a combination of brothers taking charge as president and Prime Minister of a country at the same occasion.

[112][113][114] His administration is said to have caused the Sri Lankan economic and food crisis following his policies of tax reduction, money printing, and organic farming.

SLPP victory is mainly owing to the predominant success in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic and due to the negative publicity about the UNP-led government, which was accused of a major intelligence failure triggered by the aftermath of the 2019 Easter attacks.

The move was claimed to be a part of government efforts to boost domestic food production, but has been criticized by environmental activists as government-backed deforestation and implied permission-granting for unregulated logging concessions in high biodiversity areas.

[123][124] By April 2022, the government had reversed its decision and was seeking a US$700 million loan from the World Bank to revive the agricultural sector by providing it with imported agrochemicals following a massive drop production in the "Maha" season.

[125] Rajapaksa administration introduced massive tax cuts in late 2019,[126] which lead to a drop in government revenue that was soon compounded with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the island nation losing its lucrative US$3 billion tourism industry that put 200,000 out of work in 2020 and most of 2021.

[132][133] Following severe shortages of fuel, the state owned Ceylon Electricity Board was forced to implement 10–13 hour power cuts across the island in late March.

[134] On 3 April, the entire cabinet of ministers resigned and Rajapaksa offered to form a national government with the other political parties in parliament, which was turned down.

[144] On 12 July, it was reported that Rajapaksa was blocked from leaving the country by immigration staff at Bandaranaike International Airport[145] and his visa request for United States was rejected.

In his resignation letter which was formally read out at the parliament on 16 July, he had stated: "It is my personal belief that I took all possible steps to address this crisis, including inviting parliamentarians to form an all-party or unity government.