Home Appointments President
President
Sri Lanka Government
| Appointee | Chandrika Kumaratunga |
|---|---|
| Role | President |
| Organisation | Sri Lanka Government |
| Domain | Politics |
| Start | 12 November 1994 |
| End | 19 November 2005 |
| Notes | First woman President of Sri Lanka; daughter of Sirimavo Bandaranaike |
Institutional context
The President of Sri Lanka is the head of state and head of government under the country's 1978 constitution, which created an executive presidency replacing the previous Westminster-style premiership. From 1978 through November 1994 every holder was male.
Career path
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (born 1945) is the daughter of Sirimavo Bandaranaike (the world's first elected woman PM, see the Bandaranaike dossier) and Solomon Bandaranaike. She was educated at Sciences Po and entered politics through the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. She served as Chief Minister of the Western Province from 1993 and as Prime Minister briefly in 1994 before her presidential election later that year.
Appointment
She won the November 1994 presidential election decisively and was sworn in on 12 November 1994. She is the first woman President of Sri Lanka.
Tenure
Eleven years. Her tenure included continued conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, an attempted assassination in 1999 in which she lost her right eye, and the 2002 ceasefire mediated by Norway. She left office on 19 November 2005.
Cluster context
Kumaratunga is one of two Sri Lankan first-woman heads of government / state in the dataset. The Bandaranaike–Kumaratunga mother-daughter sequence (1960 and 1994) is distinctive in the dataset's pre-2010 record and reflects a regional pattern of political-family inheritance in South Asian first-woman events.