Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga Biography

From 1994 until 2005, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was the first woman to lead the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. Her father, SWRD Bandaranaike, was a prominent government minister who subsequently became Prime Minister, and her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was the world's first woman Prime Minister in 1961. President Kumaratunga inherited her father's liberal political ideology and is known for her enthusiasm and brilliance. She was a political activist since she was a child, and she built a network of grassroots connections all throughout the country. She has always been strongly dedicated to the welfare of the poor, underprivileged, and disadvantaged, having been greatly affected by the radical student movement of the 1960s. The other continuous tactic in her approach to politics is her unwavering adherence to the imperatives of a plural society. President Kumaratunga accelerated the pace of economic liberalization in Sri Lanka during her 1994 election campaign and while in office, working to find a settlement to the long and brutal war with the Tamils. She earned a degree in Political Science from the University of Paris, as well as a certificate in Group Leadership. She was called to serve her nation while pursuing a Ph.D. in Development Economics when her mother's administration had begun a broad reform and development initiative. In her first venture into electoral politics, President Kumaratunga was elected with an extraordinary majority to the Western Provincial Council and became Chief Minister of the country's largest province. She was elected to Parliament by an overwhelming majority as a member of the People's Alliance Party and was named Prime Minister in the newly established People's Alliance administration in 1994, ending the United National Party's 17-year dominance. With a record 62 percent of the vote, she was elected President of Sri Lanka. Despite her life's unprecedented achievement, she suffered numerous personal tragedies, including the political killing of her father and flamboyant husband Wijaya Kumaratunga. She was injured in a suicide attack during a campaign rally in 1999, but she went on to win a second term the following year. She went on to become President of the United States until 2005. President Kumaratunga is an economist who has published research papers such as “The Janawasa Movement: Future Strategies for Development in Sri Lanka.” She's also written "The State and Social Structures in Sri Lanka," "Land and Agrarian Reforms in Sri Lanka," "Food Policies and Strategies in Sri Lanka from 1948 to Date," and "The Cooperative Movement in Sri Lanka." President Kumaratunga has given guest lectures at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University and Bradford University in the United Kingdom. From 1988 until 1991, she worked as a Research Fellow at the University of London's Institute of Commonwealth Studies.

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