Srima Dissanayake

Dissanayake was born in 1943.^[1][a] She was the daughter of Piyasena Lenaduwa from Galle in southern Ceylon.^[2] She was educated at Ladies' College, Colombo.^[2]

After school, Dissanayake joined Ceylon Law College, where she met her future husband Gamini Dissanayake.^[2][3] The couple had two sons, Navin and Mayantha, both of whom had served as Members of Parliament, and one daughter, Varuni.^[4][5]

Dissanayake was a lawyer by profession and was a member of the Central Provincial Council.^[6][7] Her husband, who was the Leader of the Opposition, was chosen by the United National Party to be its candidate at the 1994 presidential election.^[8] However, he was killed in a suicide bombing on 24 October 1994, sixteen days before the election.^[9] The UNP, hoping to capitalise on the sympathy vote, chose Srima Dissanayake over former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former first lady Hema Premadasa to be Gamini Dissanayake’s replacement.^[10] However, many UNP officials refused to campaign for Srima Dissanayake who, for security reasons, campaigned through the media only.^[9][11]

Dissanayake was soundly defeated by prime minister Chandrika Kumaratunga who swept the polls, with Kumaratunga winning in all but one of the 160 polling divisions.^[12] Dissanayake received 2,715,283 votes (35.91%), the lowest share for a major party candidate in any Sri Lankan presidential election.^[13][14] Following the election, Dissanayake left politics and devoted herself to her family, the Gamini Dissanayake Foundation and the Gamini Dissanayake Institute of Technology and Vocational Studies.^[2][15]

Dissanayake died at a private hospital in Colombo on 29 March 2019.^[16][17]

• List of political families in Sri Lanka