Sri Lanka’s new president has chosen his prime minister – choosing a girl for the third time within the nation’s historical past.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake named former college lecturer-turned-MP Harini Amarasuriya as prime minister on Tuesday – additionally giving her ministerial accountability for justice, schooling and labour.
Each are a part of the left-leaning Nationwide Individuals’s Energy alliance, which has simply three seats in Sri Lanka’s 225 seat parliament.
The remaining interim cupboard roles have been shared out between the get together’s two different MPs, as hypothesis continued to mount over a possible parliamentary election being referred to as within the coming days.
“We could have the smallest cupboard within the historical past of Sri Lanka,” get together member Namal Karunaratne advised reporters on Tuesday, in keeping with information company AFP, including that parliament may very well be dissolved “throughout the subsequent 24 hours”.
Dissanayake had beforehand signalled he would dissolve parliament quickly after being elected as there was “no level persevering with with a parliament that’s not according to what the individuals need”.
Dissanayake, who has drawn growing assist lately for his anti-corruption and anti-poverty insurance policies, received the nation’s first election since its financial system collapsed in 2022 on the weekend.
It was a exceptional turnaround for a politician who received simply 3% within the 2019 presidential election.
Amarasuriya campaigned alongside him in 2019, earlier than being elected as an MP the following yr.
Her profession as a public activist began in 2011, when she participated in protests demanding free of charge schooling.
The 54-year-old has since develop into identified for her advocacy for youth improvement, youngster safety and gender inequality, amongst different social justice points.
Her appointment as Sri Lanka’s sixteenth prime minister makes her the primary tutorial to take workplace. She follows within the footsteps of simply two different ladies – Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga – each of whom had household ties to politics. A lady has not held the function since 2000.
