Sri Lanka

William Gopallawa

President of Sri Lanka, 1972–1978

He served as the last Governor-General of Ceylon from 1962 to 1972 and then as the first and only non-executive President of Sri Lanka until 1978. Gopallawa has been described as a reformist.

• William Gopallawa (Wikipedia)
• William Gopallawa (Wikidata)

Portrait of William Gopallawa: Abbie Rowe, Public domain, file

Junius Richard Jayewardene

President of Sri Lanka, 1978–1989

He led the United National Party to a landslide victory in the 1977 parliamentary elections and served as prime minister for half a year before becoming the country's first executive president under an amended constitution. The open economic system he introduced in 1978 brought the country out of the economic turmoil it was facing as the result of the preceding government's closed economic policies. Jayawardene's social policies, including his response to the Black July riots of 1983, have been accused of heightening ethnic tensions in the country and contributing to the beginnings of the Sri Lankan civil war.

• Junius Richard Jayewardene (Wikipedia)
• Junius Richard Jayewardene (Wikidata)

Portrait of Junius Richard Jayewardene: Department of Defense. American Forces Information Service. Defense Visual Information Center., Public domain, file

Ranasinghe Premadasa

President of Sri Lanka, 1989–1993

He served as the third president of Sri Lanka from 1989 until his assassination in 1993. He previously served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1978 to 1989, with his tenure making him the longest-serving uninterrupted Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. He was seen as a spokesperson of the poor, common man, but his handling of the country's two civil conflicts, the JVP insurrection and the Sri Lankan civil war, has been heavily criticised.

• Ranasinghe Premadasa (Wikipedia)
• Ranasinghe Premadasa (Wikidata)

Portrait of Ranasinghe Premadasa: Direxpiyumika, CC0, file

Dingiri Banda Wijetunga

President of Sri Lanka, 1993–1994

He served as the fourth president of Sri Lanka from 7 May 1993 to 12 November 1994, and as Prime Minister from 3 March 1989 to 7 May 1993. He was awarded Sri Lankabhimanya, Sri Lanka's highest civilian award in 1993 by president Ranasinghe Premadasa.

• Dingiri Banda Wijetunga (Wikipedia)
• Dingiri Banda Wijetunga (Wikidata)

Chandrika Kumaratunga

President of Sri Lanka, 1994–2005

She served as the fifth president of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2005 and is the longest-serving president in Sri Lankan history. In 1994 she was elected as the first female president of Sri Lanka, defeating UNP candidate Srima Dissanayake in the largest landslide victory in Sri Lankan history. In the 1999 election, Kumaratunga survived an assassination attempt during her re-election campaign and went on to win a second term, defeating UNP candidate and Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe.

• Chandrika Kumaratunga (Wikipedia)
• Chandrika Kumaratunga (Wikidata)

Portrait of Chandrika Kumaratunga: Prime Minister's Office, GODL-India, file

Mahinda Rajapaksa

President of Sri Lanka, 2005–2015

Rajapaksa was sworn in for his first six-year term as president on 19 November 2005. He was subsequently re-elected in 2010 for a second term. Rajapaksa was defeated in his bid for a third term in the 2015 presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena, and he left office on 9 January 2015.

• Mahinda Rajapaksa (Wikipedia)
• Mahinda Rajapaksa (Wikidata)

Portrait of Mahinda Rajapaksa: Prime Minister's Office, GODL-India, file

Maithripala Sirisena

President of Sri Lanka, 2015–2019

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. His victory in the election was generally viewed as an upset, coming to office through votes won from the alternative Sinhala-majority rural constituency and the Tamil and Muslim minority groups that were alienated by the Rajapaksa government on post-war reconciliation and growing sectarian violence. Sirisena pledged to implement a 100-day reform program where he promised to rebalance the executive branch within 100 days of being elected.

• Maithripala Sirisena (Wikipedia)
• Maithripala Sirisena (Wikidata)

Portrait of Maithripala Sirisena: Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, file

Gotabaya Rajapaksa

President of Sri Lanka, 2019–2022

He served as the eighth president of Sri Lanka from 18 November 2019 until his resignation on 14 July 2022. He became the first Sri Lankan president with a military background and no prior elected office experience. During his presidency, Sri Lanka faced the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently experienced a severe economic crisis, including shortages of essential goods, high inflation and difficulties servicing its external debt.

• Gotabaya Rajapaksa (Wikipedia)
• Gotabaya Rajapaksa (Wikidata)

Portrait of Gotabaya Rajapaksa: Government of India, GODL-India, file

Ranil Wickremesinghe

President of Sri Lanka, 2022–2024

Following Rajapaksa's resignation in July 2022, Wickremesinghe assumed the presidency in an acting capacity and was subsequently elected as the 9th president and the 8th executive president of Sri Lanka by parliament on 20 July 2022. He attempted to run for a full term in his own right in 2024 but failed to win reelection, finishing in third place with 17.27% of the vote.

• Ranil Wickremesinghe (Wikipedia)
• Ranil Wickremesinghe (Wikidata)

Portrait of Ranil Wickremesinghe: The President's Office, CC BY 4.0, file

Anura Kurankan Dissanayake

President of Sri Lanka, 2024 to today

Dissanayake is the first Sri Lankan president to be elected in a second round of vote counting, and the first not to be a member of the traditional political parties of Sri Lanka. He ran again in 2024 and was elected as President of Sri Lanka on 22 September 2024, becoming the first president to be elected from a third party.

• Anura Kurankan Dissanayake (Wikipedia)
• Anura Kurankan Dissanayake (Wikidata)

Portrait of Anura Kurankan Dissanayake: Prime Minister's Office, GODL-India, file