Maithripala Sirisena

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Pallewatte Gamaralalage Maithripala Yapa Sirisena (born 3 September 1951) is the former President of Sri Lanka,who served as the seventh President of Sri Lanka from 9 January 2015 to 18 November 2019.

Sirisena is Sri Lanka's first president from the North Central Province of the country and does not belong to the traditional Sri Lankan political elite.Sirisena joined mainstream politics in 1989 as a member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka and has held several ministries since 1994.

He was the general-secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and was Minister of Health until November 2014 when he announced his candidacy for the 2015 presidential election as the opposition coalition's "common candidate".

His victory in the election is generally viewed as a surprise, coming to office through the votes won from the alternative Sinhala-majority rural constituency and the Tamil and Muslim minority groups that have been alienated by the Rajapaksa government on post-war reconciliation and growing sectarian violence.

Maithripala Sirisena pledged to implement a 100-day reform program where he promised to rebalance the executive branch within 100 days of being elected, by reinforcing Sri Lanka's judiciary and parliament, to fight corruption and to investigate allegations of war crimes from 2009, repeal the controversial eighteenth amendment, re-instate the seventeenth amendment and appoint UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister.

He later was reported to have publicly disavowed this program, claiming that he did not know where it originated.Sirisena was sworn in as the sixth Executive President before Supreme Court judge K. Sripavan in Independence Square, Colombo at 6.20pm on 9 January 2015.

Immediately afterwards he appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe as the new Prime Minister.

After being sworn in Sirisena stated that he would only serve one term.

Sirisena voluntarily transferred significant presidential powers to parliament on 28 April.He is well known for surprising Sri Lankans by issuing gazettes every Friday since 26 October 2018.

In 2018, Sirisena appointed the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa (his former rival) as the Prime Minister, wrote a letter firing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (with whose major support he became the president in 2015) and prorogued Parliament, all in apparent contradiction to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, instigating a constitutional crisis.

This marks Sirisena's second, and most successful attempt to bring Rajapaksa to power.

Family and personal life

Sirisena is married to Jayanthi Pushpa Kumari, they have two daughters, Chathurika, Dharani, and a son, Daham.

Sirisena is a teetotaler, vegetarian, and a Theravada Buddhist.

Sirisena's youngest brother, Priyantha Sirisena, died on 28 March 2015 after an axe attack two days earlier in his hometown of Polonnaruwa, 215 kilometres (134 mi) north-east of the capital Colombo. Priyantha was immediately transferred to hospital in a critical condition, where he died from severe head injuries; Sirisena was in China on a state visit at the time.

Sirisena's daughter Chathurika Sirisena launched her first booked title Janadhipathi Thaththa in 2017. This is the first biography written by a daughter of a President of Sri Lanka. The book, which was praised for its command of Sinhala, was later revealed to have been ghostwritten by an employee of Media Gang, a marketing agency owned by Chathurika Sirisena. Meanwhile, Sirisena's son, Daham, has been cited in multiple assaults and been named in leading a mob attack on a nightclub. Charges against him have been since withdrawn.

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Early life and career

On September 3rd, 1951 in Yagoda, a village in present-day Gampaha District, Maithripala Sirisena was born as the eldest of a family of 12 with 5 brothers and 6 sisters. Pallewatte Gamaralalage Albert Sirisena's father, Pallewatte Gamaralalage Albert Sirisena, was a World War II soldier who was given five acres of paddy land in Polonnaruwa, which resulted in the family's relocation from Yagoda to Polonnaruwa. Yapa Appuhamilage Dona Nandawathi, his mother, was a school teacher.

He was educated in Thopawewa Maha Vidyalaya and Raja Madya Madya Maha Vidyalaya, where he first developed an interest in politics. Sirisena became involved in communism as a youth and joined the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist), becoming closely involved with party leader N. Shanmugathasan while still in school and closely associated with party activities. He appeared at a communist party anti-government demonstration in 1968, but was interrupted by baton charging police.

He was elected as the secretary of the SLFP Youth Organisation in Polonnaruwa by the SLFP Member of Parliament for Polonnaruwa, Leelaratna Wijesingha, at the age of 17. He was sentenced to 15 months in 1971 for allegedly being complicit in the Jana Vimukthi Perpetration. Following his release from jail, Sirisena joined All Ceylon SLFP Youth Organization led by Anura Bandaranaike and began campaigning at the national level. Sirisena obtained SLFP membership in 1978 after serving at a variety of state agencies. Sirisena started working at the Palugasdamana Multi Purpose Cooperative Society as a purchasing officer in 1974, but resigned in 1978. He rose to the top of the SLFP ranks, joining the party's politburo in 1981, where he was elected President of the All Island SLFP Youth Organisation and later served as Treasurer. When Basil Rajapaksa joined the United National Party in 1981, he assumed responsibility for the organization's Secretary. He was appointed the Polonnaruwa SLFP chief organiser by the SLFP hierarchy, which was followed by subpoena. In 1983, he became president of the All Island SLFP Youth Organisation.

Sirisena studied at the Sri Lanka School of Agriculture in Kundasale, where he obtained a diploma in agriculture in 1973. He obtained a diploma in political science at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Russia in 1980.

Legislative career (1989–2015)

Sirisena ran in the 1989 parliamentary election as one of the SLFP's candidates in Polonnaruwa District, and was elected to the Parliament. He was re-elected in the 1994 parliamentary election, this time as a People's Alliance (PA) candidate. For the first time in 1997, he was appointed as the SLFP's General Secretary, but he resigned later. Sirisena attempted to become the SLFP's general-secretary in August 2000, but S. B. Dissanayake defeated him. Sirisena was instead named one of the SLFP's Deputy Presidents. Following Dissanayake's defection to the United National Party in October 2001, he became the general secretary of the SLFP in October 2001 (UNP).

Sirisena was elected deputy Minister of Irrigation in the new PA government headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994. President Kumaratunga nominated him to the Cabinet in 1997, naming him Minister of Mahaweli Development. Although he was in charge of several concessionary grants to raise the quality of the farming community, he made several compromiseary grants to raise the baronial level. He was also responsible for the government's decision to give farmers a bag of fertiliser worth Rs. 350 people were sent by the time in order to combat the food crisis at the time. When he became the Agriculture Minister in 2005, he saved the Paddy Marketing Board from privatization, turning it into a government agency. To this day, the Paddy Marketing Board continues to regulate paddy prices. He also started important irrigation schemes, including Moragahakanda, Kalu, and Walawe rivers. He was re-elected to Parliament in 2000 and retained his ministerial role.

He was re-elected in the 2001 general election, but Sirisena lost his post as a minister.

The SLFP joined forces with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in January 2004 to form the United People's Freedom Alliance, a political group (UPFA). Sirisena was re-elected as a UPFA candidate in 2004's parliamentary election. In the new UPFA government, President Kumaratunga appointed him Minister of River Basin Development and Rajarata Construction in April 2004. He was also elected House Speaker Paul Ryan. In July 2005, Sirisena's ministerial portfolio was renamed Minister of Irrigation, Mahaweli, and Rajarata Development. In August 2005, he resigned as the House's Leader.

Sirisena Minister of Agriculture, Environment, Irrigation, and Mahaweli Development was selected in November 2005 by newly elected President Mahinda Rajapaksa following the 2005 presidential election. In Aranangawila, unknown gunmen shot Sirisena's personal secretary M. L. Dharmasiri on March 27, 2006. Following a cabinet reshuffle in January 2007, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture Extension and Agrarian Services Development by President Rajapaksa.

Sirisena initiated a program called 'Api Wavamu – Rata Nagamu' to raise local food production on a national basis in order to combat the 2007-08 world food price crisis. Every year, tilling festivals were held in each divisional secretariat, contributing to the re cultivation of more than 1 million abandoned paddy fields under the scheme. The initiative was described as a major success in the midst of the country's green revolution.

Although Sirisena was serving as the Minister of Agriculture, he also served as the acting Defense Minister for several times during the Sri Lankan civil war. During the first two weeks of the civil war, he was acting defense minister while others were committing some of the worst suspected war crimes.

Sirisena has confirmed that LTTE may have attempted to assassinated him on at least five occasions. When a convoy he was in danger by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's suicide bomber at Piriwena, Colombo, Sirisena barely survived death on October 9th, 2008. One individual was killed and seven others were wounded.

Sirisena was re-elected in the 2010 parliamentary election and was appointed Minister of Health in April 2010. During his time in Sirisena, the country's vaping and alcohol use was on the decline. He introduced a National Medical Drug Policy based on the Sri Lankan National Pharmaceutical Policy of Seneka Bibile, and he brought the Cigarette and Alcohol Act against smoking packaging that contained pictorial warnings to parliament. The act called for 80% of packaging to include pictorial warnings, but it was reduced to 60% due to pressure from several multinational companies and some parts of the government itself. Sirisena was elected as one of the World Health Assembly's Vice Presidents in May 2014.

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