President Gotabaya Rajapaksa scored an impressive victory at the hotly contested presidential election winning 52.5 percent of the vote when the general expectation was that a second preference count would be necessary as no candidate could get more than 50 percent of the vote. President Rajapaksa’s victory has debunked the theory that victory at a presidential election necessarily requires the support of the ethnic and religious minorities. It has at the same time shown the existence of an acute polarization, and wound, in the body politic that needs healing.