In a compound secured by the Sri Lankan elite special task force that protects the island nation's top leaders, beneath framed photos of himself in army uniform, the brother of newly installed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is mulling a presidential run.
"I'm not interested in actually becoming a minister," Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was appointed by his brother to be Sri Lanka's defense secretary in 2005, just before the climax of a brutal 26-year civil war, said in an interview. "But a lot of people want me to contest for the presidency."
In a country where it is common to appoint family members to run key ministries, the comments aren't much of a surprise. But they suggest the Rajapaksa clan is preparing to once again dominate politics in a nation it controlled from 2005 and 2015, when the family lost power in an election shock.