Sri Lanka’s former defence chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa has won the country’s presidential election, capitalising on public fury over the Easter bomb attacks that killed 277 people to lead his family to a stunning political comeback.

The younger brother of former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, who ruled the country for a decade until his shock election defeat in 2015, Mr Rajapaksa has vowed to restore “discipline” and strengthen security.

The president-elect is also expected to install Mahinda — who was barred by new term limits from running for president himself — as prime minister if his Sri Lanka’s People’s Front (SLPP) wins parliamentary elections due in the coming months, if not before.

The return of the Rajapaksa brothers marks a dramatic turnabout for the Indian Ocean nation, where the US and China have been vying for influence as part of a wider regional competition.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to be the president, not only of those who voted for me, but as the president of all Sri Lankans,” Mr Rajapaksa tweeted after the final results, which showed he took 52 per cent of the vote.

Mr Rajapaksa’s ascent will be welcomed in Beijing, which had close ties with Mahinda Rajapaksa, and will concern Washington, which has been seeking to integrate Sri Lanka into its Indian Ocean security strategy.

“Sri Lanka sits astride vital sea lanes of communication,” said Brahma Chellaney, a security analyst at New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research. “If China is going to be the main player influencing Sri Lankan foreign policy, and Sri Lanka — like Cambodia — is becoming part of the Chinese camp, it’s going to represent a setback to the US strategy for a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

India, which was uncomfortable with China’s close ties with the Rajapaksas during the years of Mahinda’s rule, was among the first countries to congratulate the new president-elect.

“I look forward to working closely with you for deepening the close and fraternal ties between our two countries and citizens, and for peace, prosperity as well as security in our region,” Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, tweeted

Earlier in the day, the SLPP urged its supporters to celebrate peacefully and conduct themselves in an “exemplary” manner “as the first step in a respectful new government we start tomorrow”.

Mr Rajapaksa’s overwhelming support among the Sinhala Buddhist majority, who make up 70 per cent of the country’s 22m people, gave him a decisive victory over his main challenger, the United National Party’s Sajith Premadasa, who drew wide support in minority Tamil regions.

Conceding defeat, Mr Premadasa appealed to his rival to “strengthen and protect the democratic institutions and values that enabled this peaceful election”. He also asked Mr Rajapaksa to ensure “that the post-election environment is peaceful” and that opposition supporters were not persecuted.

It was unclear whether Ranil Wickremesinghe, the UNP prime minister, intends to try to cling to power in the face of the party’s defeat. Several members of his cabinet have already resigned and analysts expect the premier to make a decision after meeting members of his parliamentary party on Monday morning.

In a statement on Sunday evening, Mahinda Rajapakse said that “in the face of the unequivocal people’s mandate delivered at this election, the SLPP expected that “the government will abide by parliamentary traditions as appropriate in such circumstances”.

Mahinda Rajapaksa ruled Sri Lanka from 2005 until 2015, crushing a 26-year-old Tamil separatist insurgency. As defence secretary in that administration, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former army colonel, was critical in the uncompromising final assault that obliterated the Tamil Tiger rebel movement.

But the civil war’s brutal end led to fraught relations between the Rajapaksa administration and the west, which accused authorities of serious rights abuses during and after the war.

Defying western demands for accountability and justice, Mahinda Rajapaksa forged close ties with Beijing, which provided a tide of credit for ambitious infrastructure projects.

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During the postwar economic boom, many Sri Lankans who had once lionised the Rajapaksas grew disillusioned, amid allegations that the family was skimming money from Chinese-backed infrastructure projects and the suppression of dissent.

Mr Wickremesinghe has repaired frayed ties with the west, and undertaken a $1.5bn IMF adjustment programme. But the government has been plagued by bitter infighting, while decision-making has been paralysed, to the chagrin of the business community.

The government’s failure to prevent April’s Isis-inspired bomb attacks on three five-star hotels and three churches — despite multiple warnings from foreign intelligence agencies — provided the context Gotabaya Rajapaksa needed for his presidential bid.

“He has a reputation for being a no-nonsense, ‘I will get things done’ person,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think-tank.

Mr Rajapaksa will be sworn in at a ceremony on Monday. Mahinda Rajapaksa issued a statement Sunday, declaring that the new government would “deliver justice to all those who have been subjected to persecution and harassment by this government over the past five years”.

He also vowed a comprehensive review of an omnibus constitutional amendment pushed through in April 2015, that reduced the authority of Sri Lanka’s executive presidency, moved Sri Lanka closer to a UK-style parliamentary system and created independent institutions to ensure checks and balances on those in power.