Ratnasiri Wickremanayake

Trivia

• He held both posts until being made Prime Minister in 2005.
• After the SLFP won the 2004 parliamentary elections, Wickremanayake was appointed Minister of Buddhist Affairs, Public Security, and Law and Order, and Deputy Minister for Defence.
• His time as Prime Minister ended in October 2001 when the legislature after it became apparent that his government was about to lose a no-confidence motion.
• He became Prime Minister in 2000 after the resignation of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and briefly headed a minority SLFP government supported by the JVP for a year.
• He became General Secretary of the SLFP in 1978.
• In 1975, Wickremanayake was appointed Minister of Plantation Industries and the next year was also Minister of Justice. Like many other party stalwarts, Wickremanayake also lost his Parliamentary seat in the landslide defeat of the SLFP in 1977.
• Wickremanayake received his first ministerial appointment in 1970, when he was appointed Deputy Minister for Justice in the United Front government under Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
• The new Prime Minister is also one who is seen as holding hawkish views on the attacks of the decades-long Internationally banned Terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
• Wickremanayake is known to toe a Sinhala-hardline position.
• He is a senior vice-president of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party.