His Excellency President Anura kumara Dissanayake has appointed former university lecturer-turned-MP Harini Amarasuriya as Sri Lanka’s new prime minister who has also increased the tally of women attaining the prime minister’s position in the country to three.
However, both the president and the prime minister are on the part of the left-leaning National People’s power alliance who can only boast of a total of three seats out of two hundred and twenty-five (225) parliamentary seats which makes up Sri Lanka’s house of legislators.
Plus, the remaining temporary executive arm of government (cabinet) positions have been shared among the two other parliamentarians who won the tickets of the party.
According to Namal Karunaratne, a member of the party granted an interview to a news agency AFP “We will have the smallest cabinet in the history of Sri Lanka,” while he added that the country’s parliament could be dissolved “within the next 24 hours.”
Meanwhile, President Anura Dissanayake had hinted a possible dissolvement of Sri Lanka’s parliament immediately he secures the mandate from the electorate as he believed that there was “no point continuing with a parliament that is not in line with what the people want.”
Madam Harini Amarasuriya involvements into demanding for free education for the ordinary citizens in Sri Lanka began in the year 2011. She is currently at the age of 54 and she has been a key voice known for advocating for child protection, gender inequality and youth development.
Amarasuriya’s appointment as the new prime minister of Sri Lanka makes her 16th PM of the country while she secures the seat of PM as the third woman since 2000 to ever become a prime minister in Sri Lanka.
