Chandrika Kumaratunga

Biography

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was born in Colombo in 1945, the daughter of prime ministers S. W. R. D. and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She studied in France, at Aix-en-Provence and at Sciences Po in Paris, and returned to Sri Lanka in 1972, where she worked in land-reform bodies and joined her parents' Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

In 1984 she left the party with her husband, the actor and politician Vijaya Kumaratunga, to build the Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya. After his assassination in 1988 she went into exile in Britain, returning in 1991. In 1993 she was elected chief minister of the Western Province.

She led the People's Alliance to victory in the 1994 general election, became prime minister and party leader, and won the presidency that November. As president until 2005 she pursued market-oriented reforms, peace talks and then war with the Tamil Tigers, and proposed a constitution that would devolve power. She lost the sight of one eye in a Tamil Tiger bomb attack days before winning re-election in 1999. Later she helped bring Maithripala Sirisena to power in 2015 and chaired the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation until 2019.