A Rajapaksa loyalist, Dinesh Gunawardena is Sri Lanka’s new prime minister. The veteran politician’s parents escaped to India during World War II and joined underground activists who were part of the freedom movement
Veteran politician Dinesh Gunawardena is Sri Lanka’s new prime minister. He is considered to be a close aide of Mahinda Rajapaksa. AFP
Changes are sweeping Sri Lanka, at least on the political front. A day after Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the crisis-hit nation’s president, it now has a new prime minister: Dinesh Gunawardena.
The lawmaker took oath on Friday even as Sri Lanka struggles with its worst economic crisis and the country continues to see angry protesters demonstrating on the streets against the leadership. Gunawardena’s swearing-in ceremony took place just hours after security forces raided a protest camp on government grounds in Colombo and made nine arrests, reports Reuters. The new administration is already moving to crack down on agitators.
Like Wickremesinghe, Gunawardena has big challenges ahead of him. We take a look at his time in politics and his family’s ties to India.A Rajapaksa loyalist
The 73-year-old veteran leader is Wickremesinghe’s old schoolmate at the Royal College of Colombo. He then went on to pursue his education in the United States and The Netherlands.
Gunawardena is an influential trade union leader, having spent 22 years in politics and held several ministerial portfolios. A confidant of the ousted Lankan prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, he was the foreign affairs and education minister in the previous government. Amid the economic crisis, as ministers resigned en masse, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was then president, brought in Gunawardena as the Minister of Home Affairs in April.
The leader has been a Rajapaksa loyalist, whether the clan has been in power or not. Gunawardena proved to be a capable opposition leader during the regime of Maithripala Sirisena and Wickremesinghe between 2015 and 2019. He clashed with Wickremesinghe several times in the past and now is prime minister under him. Such is the nature of politics.
Gunawardena leads the left-leaning political part Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) – which translates to People’s United Front – founded in 1959.
The India connection
Politics is something the new Lankan prime minister has inherited. His father Philip Gunawardena is considered a father of Sri Lankan politics. In the early 1920s in the United States, he spoke against imperialism at the University of Wisconsin, where he had Indian political stalwarts like Jayaprakash Narayan and VK Krishna Menon as his classmates. Here is when Philip Gunawardena discovered his liking for India and went on the lead Anti-Imperialist League of India in London.
That is not where the India story ends. The Lankan PM’s parents, Philip and Kusuma, fled Sri Lanka, which was then the British colony Ceylon, during the Second World War and arrived in India. They joined underground activists who were part of the country’s freedom movement and in 1943, were captured by British intelligence and sent to Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail. A year on, they were deported to Sri Lanka and released after the war ended, according to a report on News18.com.
Dinesh Gunawardena and Ranil Wickremesinghe are schoolmates. However, the two clashed with each other on the political front. AFP
Nehru and the Gunawardena family
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, visited the Gunawardenas at their family home in Sri Lanka to thank them for their role in India’s fight for freedom.
In 1948, Sri Lanka gained independence from the British, and both Philip and Kusuma became members of parliament. Philip was a founding leader and Cabinet minister of the People’s Revolution government in 1956. Their four children followed the parents’ footsteps and entered politics holding high positions in the government, according to the News18 report.
Gunawardena, the prime minister
According to sources, Wickremesinghe had informed Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to propose a person for the post of the prime minister who both the ruling party and the opposition agree to form an all-party government with. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the party of the Rajapaksas, which is the largest bloc in the 225-member parliament, backed Gunawardena.
Sri Lanka’s crisis, the result of economic mismanagement and the fallout of conflict in Ukraine, sparked months of mass protests and eventually led to the ouster of the Rajapaksa family. Gotabaya and Mahinda may not be in charge but their loyalists continue to hold positions of power.
With inputs from agencies
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