Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) prime minister (19605, 19707, 19942000), born in Ratnapura, S Sri Lanka. Following the assassination of her husband, S W R D Bandaranaike, in 1959, she became leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, won the Ceylon general election (1960), and became the world's first woman prime minister. She held the position for a second time following independence, and again in 1994. Her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunge (1945 ) became president of Sri Lanka (1994 ), having previously been prime minister for a few months.
Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike (April 17, 1916 - October 10, 2000) was a politician from Sri Lanka. She was prime minister of Sri Lanka three times, 1960-1965, 1970-1977 and 1994-2000, and was the world's first female prime minister. She was a leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. She was the wife of a previous Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Solomon Bandaranaike and the mother of Sri Lanka's third President Chandrika Kumaratunga. She was also mother of Anura Bandaranaike, Sri Lankan Tourism Minister and Sunethra Bandaranaike, philanthropist.
Political background
On her husband's assassination, Bandaranaike took over the leadership of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which he had formed and led to election victory in 1956, and kept it for 40 years until her death. She became prime minister on July 21, 1960 and ruled her country on and off throughout the 1960s and 1970s until she was crushingly defeated in a general election in 1977.
A staunch socialist, Bandaranaike continued her husband's policies of nationalizing key sectors of the economy, such as banking and insurance.
Further problems arose with the President's state takeover of foreign businesses, particularly the petroleum companies, which upset the Americans and the British, who imposed an aid embargo on Sri Lanka. As a result, Bandaranaike moved her country closer to China and the Soviet Union and championed a policy of nonalignment. At the end of that year, she was defeated on a confidence vote, losing the general election that followed. Ceylon was renamed Sri Lanka and declared a republic. But after just 16 months in power, a left-wing youth uprising almost toppled her government: Sri Lanka's small ceremonial army could not deal with the insurgency. In a rare move, both India and Pakistan sent troops to Colombo to aid Bandaranaike in crushing the insurgency.
The 1973 oil crisis had a traumatic effect on the Sri Lankan economy; Bandaranaike became more and more intolerant of criticism and forced the shutdown of the Independent newspaper group, whose publications were her fiercest critics.
Style of functioning
Known to her fellow Sri Lankans as "Mrs. B," she could skillfully use popular emotion to boost her support, frequently bursting into tears as she pledged to continue her dead husband's policies. He, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike, was shot dead by a man dressed as a Buddhist monk in 1959.
Decline
By 1976, Bandaranaike was more respected abroad than at home. Despite her high standing internationally, she was losing Sri Lankan support rapidly amid allegations of corruption and against the background of a rapidly declining economy . Always the politician, she played her ambitious daughter, Chandrika, and son, Anura, against one another, holding on to control despite losing every subsequent general election. She finally met her match in Chandrika who outmaneuvered her mother to become Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1994, when a SLFP-led coalition won power in the general elections, and President the following year.
Bandaranaike became Prime Minister again, but the constitution had changed since her last tenure;
| Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka | |
|---|---|
| D.S. Senanayake • Dudley Senanayake • John Kotelawala • S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike • W. Dahanayake • Dudley Senanayake • Sirimavo Bandaranaike • Dudley Senanayake • Sirimavo Bandaranaike • J.R. Jayewardene • Ranasinghe Premadasa • D.B. Wijetunga • Ranil Wickremasinghe • Chandrika Kumaratunga • Sirimavo Bandaranaike • Ratnasiri Wickremanayake • Ranil Wickremasinghe • Mahinda Rajapaksa • Ratnasiri Wickremanayake |
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