Sri Lankan President appoints Harini Amarasuriya as PM, third woman to hold post

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake appointed Harini Amarasuriya as Sri Lanka's 16th Prime Minister, NewsWire reported. Amarasuriya of the National People's Power (NPP) party is an academic, rights activist, and university lecturer and is known for her work in education and social justice. Her appointment marks a significant milestone in Sri Lankan politics.

She becomes Sri Lanka's third woman Prime Minister after Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, according to a NewsWire report. The new Sri Lankan PM is the first academic-turned-politician to assume office. Harini Amarasuriya entered Parliament through the NPP national list in 2020.

On Monday, Marxist-leaning politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake took the oath as Sri Lanka's new president at the Presidential Secretariat building in Colombo after winning the elections held on September 21. After taking the oath as Sri Lanka's President, he said, "I will do my best to fully restore the people's confidence in politicians," Al Jazeera reported.

He said he understood the complexity of the problems faced by Sri Lanka. Dissanayake stated that he would work hard to realise the hopes of the people and win the confidence of all the people of Sri Lanka. He further said, "I am not a conjurer, I am not a magician."

He said, "There are things I know and things I don't know, but I will seek the best advice and do my best. For that, I need the support of everyone." According to the Election Commission of Sri Lanka, Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the People's Liberation Front (JVP) party and the National People's Power (NPP) alliance won the presidential elections with 42.31 per cent of the vote.

Dissanayake ran for office on a promise to tackle corruption and clean up politics in Sri Lanka, according to Al Jazeera report. It was Sri Lanka's first presidential election since the devastating economic crisis of 2022. The crisis, which led to widespread food and fuel shortages, prompted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country in July 2022.

The situation in Sri Lanka has now stabilised with the support of the International Monetary Fund, according to the report. However, people faced severe hardships due to the strict austerity measures. The JVP led two rebellions in the 1970s and 1980s. Dissanayake was a JVP student leader during the second insurrection.

He has described how one of his teachers sheltered him to protect him from government-backed death squads that killed party activists. The party has remained a peripheral player in Sri Lankan politics and had secured a win in less than four per cent of the vote during the parliamentary polls held in 2020, Al Jazeera report.

Dissanayake considers Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara among his heroes. Since his rise to popularity, Anura Kumara Dissanayake has softened some of his policies, stressing that he believes in an open economy and is not completely opposed to privatisation.