COLOMBO, Sept 24 — Sri Lanka's new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake named Harini Amarasuriya, a college professor and first-time lawmaker, as the new Prime Minister of the Indian Ocean island nation today, making her the third woman to be appointed to the post.
Dissanayake, 55, a Marxist-leaning firebrand politician, who was elected president in Saturday's (September 21) election, was also scheduled to pick the rest of his Cabinet.
An academic with a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, Amarasuriya, 54, became a parliamentarian in 2020 under Dissanayake's National People's Power (NPP) coalition and will also hold the portfolios of foreign affairs, education, and media.
Amarasuriya is the third woman Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, following the world's first woman prime minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960, and her daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga from August to November 1994.
Dissanayake ran as the candidate for the NPP alliance, which includes his Janatha Vimukhti Peremuna party that traditionally championed Marxist economic policies centred on protectionism and state intervention.
He and his new Cabinet now face the task of establishing an interim government, with analysts predicting Dissanayake will dissolve Parliament and call a snap general election as his party has just three of 225 seats in the current house.
Dissanayake's intentions to slash taxes and desire to revisit the terms of a US$2.9 billion (RM12 billion) International Monetary Fund bailout have worried investors, who fear that it could delay a crucial US$25 billion (RM 103.8 billion) debt restructuring.
Just before Dissanayake took the oath of office yesterday, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardene resigned, effectively dissolving the Cabinet.
— Reuters
