Sri Lanka is becoming a one-family state

USUALLY, WHEN people speak of an electoral landslide, they exaggerate. But the word aptly describes what happened in Sri Lanka on August 5th. The island nation’s voters all but buried the grand old party that had led an outgoing coalition, the United National Party, reducing its 106 members in the 225-seat parliament to a humiliating total of exactly one. They instead awarded a commanding 145 seats to a relative upstart, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, or People’s Party (SLPP), a vehicle for the powerful Rajapaksa family. With smaller parties now flocking to their support, the Rajapaksas have grasped the two-thirds majority they need to rewrite the constitution to their liking, something they have said they intend to do. One of Asia’s oldest and most durable democracies has in practice entered a period of one-party, one-family rule.