Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike (April 17, 1916 - October 10, 2000) was a politician from Sri Lanka. She was prime minister of Sri Lanka three times, 1960-1965, 1970-1977 and 1994-2000, and was the world's first female prime minister. She was a leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. She was the wife of a previous Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Solomon Bandaranaike and the mother of Sri Lanka's current President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, under whom she served her third term as Prime Minister.

Decline

By 1976, Bandaranaike was more respected abroad than at home. Her great triumph that year was to become chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement and host the largest heads of state conference the country had ever seen. Despite her high standing internationally, she was losing Sri Lankan support rapidly amid allegations of corruption and against the background of a rapidly declining economy . Nothing, it seemed, could save her. She suffered a crushing election defeat in 1977 and was stripped of her civic rights. The 1980s were her dark days - she became a political outcast rejected by the people who had once worshipped her. Banadaranaike spent the next 17 years in opposition warding off challenges to her leadership of the Freedom Party, even from her own children. Always the politician, she played her ambitious daughter, Chandrika, and son, Anura, against one another, holding on to control despite losing every subsequent general election. She finally met her match in Chandrika who outmaneuvered her mother to become President of Sri Lanka in 1994, when a Freedom Party-led coalition won power in the general elections.

Related Topics:
1976 - Non-Aligned Movement - 1977 - 1980 - 1994

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