Ranasinghe Premadasa

Ranasinghe Premadasa

Ranasinghe Premadasa ( Sinhala රණසිංහ ප්‍රේමදාස , Tamil ரணசிங்க பிரேமதாசா ; * June 23, 1924 , † May 1, 1993 ) was a Sri Lankan politician ( UNP ). From 1978 to 1989 he was Prime Minister under Junius Richard Jayewardene and from 1989 to 1993 he was finally President of Sri Lanka.

Life

Premadasa grew up in poor conditions in Colombo and was only educated in the course of his career in the United National Party (UNP) through a second education. He received his basic education from Buddhist monks and then attended St. Joseph's College, a Catholic educational institution in Colombo. He became politically active at an early stage and joined the Ceylon Labor Party , for which he was elected to the Colombo City Council in 1950. In 1955 he became Deputy Mayor of Colombo. From 1960 to 1965 he was Lord Mayor of Colombo and under the government of Prime Minister Dudley Shelton Senanayake Premadasa served as Minister of Transport and Construction from 1965 to 1970. In the opposition period of the UNP from 1970 to 1977 he held various spokesman functions in the UNP parliamentary group until he took over its chairmanship after winning the parliamentary elections in 1977 . From February 1978 to December 1988 Premadasa moved up as Prime Minister for J. R. Jayewardene, who could no longer run after two terms in office (1978-1989). After Jayawardenes' second term in office at the end of 1988, Premadasa prevailed in the presidential election on December 20, 1988 against Sirimavo Bandaranaike from the SLFP and took office as President on January 2, 1989. He then appointed Dingiri Banda Wijetunga as the new Prime Minister.

Premadasa quickly succeeded in persuading the Indian occupation forces in the Tamil area to withdraw, which took place from April 1989 to March 1990. At the same time, from 1989 to 1990 he pushed through the smashing of the Marxist JVP , which had started a terrorist uprising against the UNP government. During this dirty war the army waged against the JVP and its supporters and sympathizers, thousands were killed and disappeared . By contrast, the 1990 ceasefire with the LTTE lasted less than a year. The civil war continued harshly until May 1, 1993, when Premadasa was murdered by an LTTE suicide bomber on his way to a Labor Day rally in Colombo.

After his death, Wijetunga was named the new president and Trade Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe became prime minister until both were voted out of office in 1994 .

Private

Ranasinghe Premadasa was married to Hema Premadasa. The marriage produced a son and a daughter. The son Sajith Premadasa also became politically active in the UNP after the death of his father.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ranasinghe Premadasa. Munzinger personal archive, accessed on November 3, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Bruce Palling: Obituary: Ranasinghe Premadasa. The Independent, May 3, 1993, accessed November 3, 2019 .