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"Sri Lanka appeared to turn a new leaf with the election in January 2015 of President Maithripala Sirisena. This put an end to rule of this country of 21 million people by Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is closely associated with a brutal 2009 victory over the Tamil Tiger insurgency and authoritarian government. Alan Keenan discusses how much President Sirisena, previously a minor figure in Rajapaksa’s government, has changed politics on the South Asian island."via: http://blog.crisisgroup.org/asia/2015/05/18/a-new-sri-lanka/