Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, born in 1945, president of Sri Lanka (1994-2005). Kumaratunga was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). She was educated in Sri Lanka and at the University of Paris, in France, where she earned a degree in political science. Her family has been involved in politics since Sri Lanka’s independence in 1948; both of her parents served as prime minister. In the 1970s and early 1980s Kumaratunga held a number of important posts in the nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which was founded by her father, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, who was assassinated in 1959. In 1986 she became president of the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP), which was founded in 1984 by her husband, Vijaya Kumaratunga. Following his assassination in 1988, she was chosen to head a new four-party coalition, the United Socialist Alliance (USA). In the 1990s she emerged as one of the principal leaders of the People’s Alliance, a coalition she formed to join the SLFP and a number of smaller parties.

In August 1994 the People’s Alliance gained a majority in parliament, and Kumaratunga became prime minister. In presidential elections held later that year, Kumaratunga won a landslide victory, becoming the country’s first female president. She appointed her mother, Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, to serve as prime minister, a post her mother had held twice before.

Kumaratunga had campaigned on a promise to end the bitter civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who were seeking to create a separate nation for the Tamil minority in the northern and eastern portions of Sri Lanka. Initially her efforts to negotiate with the Tamil separatists met with some success, but the situation deteriorated when peace talks broke down in early 1995 and the LTTE violated a 100-day truce with the government.

Kumaratunga renewed the war against the LTTE, launching a military offensive that succeeded in capturing the Jaffna Peninsula, a stronghold of the LTTE. In mid-1995 Kumaratunga devised a peace plan intended to give limited autonomy to Sri Lanka’s provinces, including Tamil areas. Fighting continued as the Sri Lankan parliament debated the plan through the late 1990s and into 2000. Just days before presidential elections in December 1999, Kumaratunga survived a suicide bombing assassination attempt with only minor injuries. Despite the bombing, attributed to the LTTE, the elections proceeded, and Kumaratunga was reelected to a second six-year term. Unable to serve more than two terms under the constitution, Kumaratunga left office following the November 2005 presidential elections.