Sri Lanka’s new president has chosen his prime minister – deciding on a girl for the third time within the nation’s historical past.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake named former college lecturer-turned-MP Harini Amarasuriya as prime minister on Tuesday – additionally giving her ministerial duty for justice, schooling and labour.
Each are a part of the left-leaning Nationwide Folks’s Energy alliance, which has simply three seats in Sri Lanka’s 225 seat parliament.
The remaining interim cupboard roles had been shared out between the celebration’s two different MPs, as hypothesis continued to mount over a possible parliamentary election being referred to as within the coming days.
“We can have the smallest cupboard within the historical past of Sri Lanka,” celebration member Namal Karunaratne informed reporters on Tuesday, in keeping with information company AFP, including that parliament may very well be dissolved “throughout the subsequent 24 hours”.
Dissanayake had beforehand signalled he would dissolve parliament quickly after being elected as there was “no level persevering with with a parliament that’s not according to what the folks need”.
Dissanayake, who has drawn growing assist in recent times for his anti-corruption and anti-poverty insurance policies, gained the nation’s first election since its financial system collapsed in 2022 on the weekend.
It was a outstanding turnaround for a politician who gained simply 3% within the 2019 presidential election.
Amarasuriya campaigned alongside him in 2019, earlier than being elected as an MP the subsequent yr.
Her profession as a public activist began in 2011, when she participated in protests demanding without spending a dime schooling.
The 54-year-old has since change into identified for her advocacy for youth growth, little one safety and gender inequality, amongst different social justice points.
Her appointment as Sri Lanka’s sixteenth prime minister makes her the primary educational to take workplace. She follows within the footsteps of simply two different ladies – Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga – each of whom had household ties to politics. A girl has not held the function since 2000.
