Could Sri Lanka's Rajapaksas return, like the Marcos family?

Could the disgraced Rajapaksas return to power, like the Marcos family has in the Philippines?

Demonstrators protest inside the Presidential Secretariat premises after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka, 9 July, 2022 | Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Sri Lanka’s dramatic demonstration of people power — forcing a despised president to flee the country — has rekindled memories of a similar peaceful uprising on another island nation, the Philippines.

But thoughts are also turning to the sobering denouement of that public protest in Manila nearly 40 years ago.

In Sri Lanka, as with the Philippines in 1986, a largely non-violent uprising has driven out a leader whose family had wielded power for a couple of decades.

In both countries, the world watched as crowds surged into the opulent presidential palace, gawping at the luxury amid which their leader lived.

As with the Marcos political dynasty in the Philippines, Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksas are accused of enriching themselves at the expense of their country.

And now, some supporters of Sri Lanka’s former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and h…