Ranil Wickremesinghe

Biography

Ranil Wickremesinghe was born in Colombo in 1949 into a family of newspaper owners. He was educated at Royal College, Colombo, studied law at the University of Ceylon and became an advocate in 1972. Joining the United National Party, he won the Biyagama seat in 1977 and became Sri Lanka's youngest cabinet minister, in charge of youth affairs and employment, then education from 1980 and industry from 1989.

He first became prime minister in May 1993 after the assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, and took over the leadership of the UNP and the opposition in 1994. He lost the 1999 presidential election to Chandrika Kumaratunga but led the United National Front to victory in 2001, serving as prime minister alongside her until she dissolved parliament in 2004; his government signed a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers. He narrowly lost the 2005 presidential election to Mahinda Rajapaksa and remained opposition leader until 2015.

After Maithripala Sirisena's election in 2015 he was again prime minister until 2019, apart from his brief removal in the 2018 constitutional crisis. His government was shaken by a Central Bank bond scandal. In 2020 the UNP failed to win a single seat, and he returned to parliament on the national list in 2021.

As the economic crisis and protests of 2022 forced out the Rajapaksas, he became prime minister for a sixth time in May, acting president in July and was elected president by parliament on 20 July. He cracked down on the protest movement, secured an IMF bailout and pursued austerity reforms. He came third in the 2024 presidential election and left office in September 2024. In August 2025 he was arrested on charges of misusing public funds and later released on bail.