Ranil Wickremesinghe

Ranil Wickremesinghe (Sinhala: රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ; Tamil: ரணில் விக்கிரமசிங்க; born 24 March 1949) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the ninth president of Sri Lanka from 2022 to 2024. He has also served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1993–1994, 2001–2004, 2015–2018, 2018-2019 and in 2022. Wickremesinghe has held several ministerial roles, including Minister of Finance, Minister of Defence, Minister of Technology and Minister of Women, Child Affairs and Social Empowerment. Wickremesinghe has led the United National Party (UNP) since 1994. He is also the eighth executive president of Sri Lanka, a role established by the 1977 constitutional amendment that expanded presidential powers.

Born into a political family, Wickremesinghe graduated from the University of Ceylon and qualified as a lawyer from the Ceylon Law College in 1972. He entered politics in the mid-1970s with the UNP, first being elected to Parliament in 1977. Over the years, he held various ministerial positions, including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Youth Affairs and Employment, and Industry, Science and Technology. He first became prime minister in 1993 following the assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa.

Wickremesinghe ran for president as the UNP candidate in 1999 and 2005, but was defeated both times. In 2015, he was appointed prime minister by president Maithripala Sirisena, leading a national unity government until 2019. During his tenure, he was controversially sacked by Sirisena in 2018, triggering a constitutional crisis, but was reappointed prime minister after the Supreme Court declared his sacking as unconstitutional. He lost his parliamentary seat in 2020 but re-entered parliament in 2021 as a National List MP.

In May 2022, Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister by president Gotabaya Rajapaksa amidst the then-ongoing political crisis. Following Rajapaksa's resignation in July 2022, Wickremesinghe assumed the presidency in an acting capacity and was subsequently elected as the 9th president and the 8th executive president of Sri Lanka by parliament on 20 July 2022. He took office the following day. He attempted to run for a full term in his own right in 2024 but failed to win reelection, finishing in third place with 17.27% of the vote.