Rajapaksa to be Lanka's new prime minister
The UPFA leader is to be sworn-in as Lanka's new PM on Tuesday, reports P K Balachanddran.
Former Leader of the Opposition, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is to be sworn in as the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, following the victory of his party, the United Peoples' Freedom Alliance (UPFA), in the April 2 parliamentary elections.
The swearing-in is to take place on Tuesday, official sources said.
Rajapaksa succeeds Ranil Wickremesinghe of the defeated United National Front (UNF).
Born on November 18, 1945, "Mahinda", as he is affectionately called, was only 24 when he entered parliament in 1970 to represent the Belliatta constituency in south Sri Lanka.
Son of the veteran Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) leader and parliamentarian, DA Rajapaksa, Mahinda was a SLFP loyalist.
His father was one of the co-founders of the party along with the legendary SWRD Bandaranaike, the father of the present President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.
In the 1994-2001 government of the Peoples' Alliance (PA), Mahinda had held the portfolios of Labour and Fisheries. A labour lawyer of repute from Tangalle in south Sri Lanka, Mahinda brought many measures for the protection of labour. He was the Leader of Opposition in the last parliament.
Though identified as a person steeped "Sinhala Buddhism", the dominanant ideology of post-independence Sri Lanka, Mahinda has no trace of communalism. Soft spoken and intellectual, he is an admirer of India and Indian political culture. He is the only Sri Lankan leader to dress in Indian style wearing the pyjama-kurta with a angavastram over his shoulders.
Down to earth, Mahinda is at ease with the elite of Colombo as well as the hoi polloi in the villages. Although it is said that his candidature was not favoured by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, a key constituent of UPFA, and also the SLFP supremo's younger brother, Anura Bandaranaike, the prime ministership could not be denied to him.
Mahinda's political clout among the party cadres and his "Sinhala-Buddhist" credentials could not be ignored.
Also in the race for the Prime Ministership was the formidable former foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar. But Kadirgamar had two disadvantages: he was a Tamil and he had not been elected to the parliament.