Sri Lanka President Dissanayake picks Amarasuriya as PM, takes finance job

By Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) -Sri Lanka's new president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, named college professor and first-time lawmaker Harini Amarasuriya as the new prime minister of the Indian Ocean island nation on Tuesday, making her the third woman to be appointed to the post. 

Dissanayake, 55, has taken the key finance portfolio himself as Sri Lanka looks to emerge from its most punishing economic crisis in 70 years and its first debt default, while keeping promises to aid the nation's poor.

The Marxist-leaning firebrand politician will also hold the economic development and tourism jobs in the cabinet.

Dissanayake's intentions to slash taxes and desire to revisit the terms of a $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout have worried investors, who fear that it could delay a crucial $25 billion debt restructuring.  

His comments during Monday's inauguration offered few clues as to how hardline his economic approach will be.

"Our politics needs to be cleaner, and the people have called for a different political culture," the 55-year-old said. "I am ready to commit to that change." 

Dissanayake ran in Saturday's presidential election as the candidate for the National People's Power coalition, which includes his Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party that traditionally championed Marxist economic policies centred on protectionism and state intervention. In recent years the party has taken more centrist positions.

DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT EXPECTED

He picked veteran legislator Vijitha Herath to helm foreign affairs and public security, among other portfolios, according to the president's office.

While Herath, 56, has been a parliamentarian since 2000, Amarasuriya, 54, only entered the legislature in 2020.

An academic with a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, Amarasuriya, will also hold the portfolios of education, media and women and children affairs.

She is the third woman prime minister of Sri Lanka, following the world's first woman prime minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960, and her daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in 1994.

This was Sri Lanka's first election since its economy buckled in 2022 under a severe foreign exchange shortage, leaving it unable to pay for imports of essentials including fuel, medicine and cooking gas. Protests forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and later resign.

Dissanayake and his new cabinet face the task of establishing an interim government, with analysts predicting he will dissolve parliament and call a snap general election as his party has just three of 225 seats in the current house.        

Just before Dissanayake took the oath of office on Monday, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardene resigned to make way for a new prime minister and cabinet.

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe, Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Pushkala Aripaka; Editing by YP Rajesh and Alex Richardson)