Incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe will be sworn-in as Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister on Thursday, returning to the office for a fourth term after his party won the closely contested general election.
Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) coalition won 106 seats in Monday’s parliamentary election, just 7 short of a simple majority in the 225-member assembly but enough to form a government.
“We will also form the Cabinet thereafter,” former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said.
He was certain to receive the majority support from Rajapaksa’s United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which has 95 seats. The minority Tamil National Alliance swept the ethnic Tamil-majority Northern and Eastern provinces with 16 seats.
66-year-old veteran reformist was handpicked by President Maithripala Sirisena to lead a minority government after the ouster of longtime president Mahinda Rajapaksa in January.
A group of Sirisena supporters is likely to join a broad- based national unity government led by Wickremesinghe. Wickremesinghe became prime minister for the first time in May 1993, when a suicide bomber assassinated president Ranasinghe Premadasa. He got his second chance in 2002, when he was credited with pulling the country out of recession.
Addressing a gathering on Wednesday, Wickremesinghe said he will continue the mandate for good governance given in parliamentary polls and work together with all parties in a national government for 2-3 years.
