A week after his appointment as Acting President of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected as the new President of Sri Lanka on Wednesday 20 July following the counting of the votes in Parliament.
The vote could spark political turmoil in the South Asian island nation, which is being rocked by its worst economic crisis on record.
“I don’t need to tell you what state our country is in. Now that the election is over, we need to end this division. We had 48 hours to stay apart, but from now on I’m ready to have a dialogue with you,” he said, asking other political parties to work with him after his election.
Days after agreeing to step down as prime minister, he was appointed Sri Lankaelected acting president of the US on July 13, much to the anger of protesters who are demanding the government accountability for a debilitating economic crisis.
Spokesman Mahinda Yapa Abeywardhane announced that Mr. Wickremesinghe would become the Acting President just a few hours after taking office as President under Article 37.1 of the Sri Lankan Constitution Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country with his wife and bodyguards in the middle of the night.
Mr Rajapaksa was due to resign on July 13 amid historic protests in the country that led to his resignation Presidential palace occupied of protesters demanding accountability.
The same accountability was demanded of Mr Wickremesinghe after thousands of protesters who also want his resignation marched into his office following a standoff with police just hours after he was named acting president.
In his first televised address as acting President, Mr Wickremesinghe, 73, blamed “fascists” for the unrest.
“Those in my office want to prevent me from fulfilling my responsibilities as Acting President. We cannot let them tear up our constitution. We cannot allow fascists to take over. Some mainstream politicians also seem to support these extremists. That’s why I’ve declared a nationwide state of emergency and a curfew,” he announced.
Demonstrators celebrate after entering Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe’s office while calling for his resignation
(Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)
Mr Wickremesinghe has served six terms as the financially strapped nation’s prime minister – but never completed a full term.
His sixth term began in May when he was appointed by Mr Rajapaksa to give his government international credibility in negotiating a bailout package with the International Monetary Fund.
Mr Wickremesinghe – who was also appointed finance minister in May after one of Mr Rajapaksa’s brothers left office – soon became the face of the country’s economic collapse.
After his appointment, he said he could solve the crisis that has caused severe shortages of food, fuel and medicines in recent months.
“I thought, ‘The situation is bad, it’s your country, so you can’t ask yourself whether you’re going to be successful or not. You take it and work to be successful,'” he was quoted as saying to Al Jazeera after his appointment in May.
“I’m confident I can turn the economy around.”
Ranil Wickremesinghe gestures during an interview with The Associated Press June 11 in Colombo
(AP)
For the past two months, Mr Wickremesinghe has been making weekly speeches in Parliament and conducting difficult negotiations with financial institutions, lenders and allies to fill state coffers, the Associated Press reported.
He also raised taxes and promised to overhaul the government, which had increasingly concentrated power under the presidency and provoked public ire.
Mr Wickremesinghe has promised to step down after the formation of a new government, but protesters said his appointment was only to ease the pressure of Mr Rajapaksa’s escape.
Prior to his last term as Prime Minister, Mr Wickremesinghe was in a power-sharing agreement with former President Maithripala Sirisena.
Observers believed an internal rift between the two led to intelligence blackouts that peaked in 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 290 people.
The coalition has also been accused of failing to prosecute the Rajapaksas and their allies in alleged murder and corruption cases, according to an Indian newspaper report The Hindu.
Mr Wickremesinghe’s party – the United National Party (UNP) – claims to be Sri Lanka’s oldest political party.
It was the country’s governing party or in a governing coalition for several years, including 1947–56, 1965–70, 1977–94, 2001–04, and 2015–19.
Mr Wickremesinghe is a lawyer by profession and comes from a politically influential family.
In 1977, at the age of only 28, he was elected to Parliament for the first time.
He served as Deputy Secretary of State under President JR Jayewardene and was later appointed Secretary of State for Youth Affairs and Employment.
He has also held the Education & Industry, Science & Technology portfolios.
He first became Prime Minister in 1993 after ex-President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militant group.
In 1994 he became chairman of the UNP, succeeding Gamini Dissanayake, who was killed by suspected LTTE members while running as a presidential candidate.
He has twice unsuccessfully attempted to become the country’s president: once in 1999, when he lost to Chandrika Kumaratunga, and later in 2005, when he ceded the election to Mahinda Rajapaksa.
After a tenure of just over a year, Mr Wickremesinghe returned to power in 2001 and again in 2015.
In 2018, Mr Wickremesinghe was ousted as prime minister by Mr Sirisena, who replaced him with Mr Rajapaksa.
He returned to power with the support of 117 members, he reported The Hindu.
While Mr. Rajapaksa’s Sri Lankan Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party won a two-thirds majority in the 2020 elections, the UNP was wiped out.
Mr Wickremesinghe became their only MP in Parliament due to the country’s proportional representation system.
During his time at the University of Colombo, he became involved in student politics.
