Dinesh Gunawardena, a veteran politician and a close ally of the Rajapaksa family, was on Friday appointed Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister as President Ranil Wickremesinghe swore in his 18-member cabinet in the hope of ending the political instability and the unprecedented economic crisis.
The cabinet was sworn in on Wickremesinghe’s first day in office. Apart from Prime Minister Gunawardena, there are 17 other ministers in the cabinet.
Ali Sabry, who earlier headed the finance ministry, was appointed foreign minister. Gunawardena has been given the additional portfolios of public administration, home affairs, provincial councils and local government.
The rest of the ministers were retained with their same portfolios while President Wickremesinghe continues to hold the ministry of finance.
Wickremesinghe said he was taking steps to form an all-party government to handle the island’s worst-ever economic crisis.
A stalwart of Sri Lankan politics, Gunawardena, 73, earlier served as foreign minister and education minister. He was appointed home minister in April by then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The Prime Minister’s post fell vacant after Wickremesinghe, 73, was on Thursday sworn in as President after Rajapaksa fled the country.
A schoolmate of Wickremesinghe, Gunawardena has held various cabinet posts in the past. Born in 1949, Gunawardena is the leader of the Trotskyist majority nationalist Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, a constituent party of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna.
Gunawardena entered the parliament for the first time in 1983 from the populous Colombo suburb of Maharagama and was a leading Opposition figure until 1994. He became a cabinet minister for the first time in 2000. He continued in senior cabinet positions till 2015.