evidence: To understand the deeper reasons behind the country’s plight, we need to understand how its political economy and associated governance has evolved since 2005. That was the year when the first member of the Rajapaksa family – Mahinda – was elected President. Except for 2015-2019, when they were voted out of office, the Rajapaksa family has controlled the main offices of state and levers of power in Sri Lanka. Between 2019 and May 2022, not only was Gotabaya Rajapaksa the president, but his brother, Mahinda, was the prime minister. Although some other countries have, or had, families controlling power, the extent to which the Sri Lankan state has been taken over by one family following elections is very striking. [...] Quite how striking is shown in Figure 4 which provides a family tree showing not only the two brothers that have, at various times, been elected as president, but also another brother – Basil – who, at various points, has been a minister – most recently, finance minister – and has also run their political party, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). Although Basil resigned from parliament in June 2022, his replacement – one of the richest businessmen in Sri Lanka – Dhammika Perera – has been a close associate of the family and was appointed the Minister of Investment Promotion in late June, although he has subsequently resigned. A fourth brother – Chamal – aside from being a member of parliament, was also speaker of the parliament between 2010 and 2015.