National People’s Power (NPP) MP Dr. Harini Amarasuriya has officially assumed duties in the office as the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, after she was re-appointed to the position by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo this morning (18).

Days after new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake took oaths, Amarasuriya was appointed as the new Prime Minister of the interim government, as she became the first female to hold the position since Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 2000.  

During the 2024 General Election, which was held on November 14, Dr. Amarasuriya, who contested from the Colombo District, polled the highest number of preference votes and placed first in the district. 

She had received an unprecedented 655,289 votes in total and in doing so momentarily set a new record for the most preference votes received by a candidate in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary election history, before she was surpassed by fellow NPP candidate Vijitha Herath who broke her record after receiving 716,715 preference votes from the Gampaha District.

54-year-old Amarasuriya, a national executive committee member of the National People’s Power (NPP), is an academic, rights activist, and university lecturer and is known for her work in education and social justice. She has served as a senior lecturer in Sociology and Social Anthropology in the Department of Social Sciences of Open University, Sri Lanka and has made significant contributions to social justice and education in the country.

Daughter of a homemaker mother and a tea plantation father, Amarasuriya is the first one to enter politics from her family, while she is also the first academic-turned-politician to take charge of the prime minister of Sri Lanka.  

Born on March 6, 1970, the NPP parliamentarian is the 16th prime minister of Sri Lanka, and the third woman to reach that office after Sirimavo Bandarnaike (1994-2000) and Chandrika Kumartunga (1994). Amarasuriya is the first female Prime Minister of Sri Lanka since Sirimavo Bandaranaike took office in 1994 and the third woman to serve in this capacity in Sri Lanka’s history.

Amarasuriya first entered Parliament through the NPP national list in 2020.