Sri Lanka's Bandaranaike family sets parliamentary record

Asian Political News, Oct 23, 2000

COLOMBO, Oct. 19 Kyodo

The election Wednesday of Anura Bandaranaike as speaker of Sri Lanka's parliament underlines his family's unique place in Sri Lanka's 52 years of parliamentary democracy.

His assuming the post means that since the then Ceylon gained independence from Britain in 1948, a Bandaranaike family member has been at one time or another, and often at the same time, the country's president, prime minister, a cabinet member, the leader of the official opposition or the speaker of the house.

The landmark is believed unprecedented among parliamentary democracies.

The Nehru family in India, the Bhutto family in Pakistan and the Sheik Mujibar Rahman family in Bangladesh have all been in senior positions in their countries for more than a generation, but none of them has ever held so many public positions of the highest rank.

In 1948, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was named minister of Local Government in what was then Ceylon and in 1956 he became prime minister.

After his 1959 assassination, his wife Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first woman prime minister in July 1960.

From 1965 to 1970, Sirimavo was leader of the official opposition.

In 1970, she again became prime minister. In 1977 she was back on the opposition bench as leader.

Also in 1977, her son Anura entered parliament and in 1980, when his mother was deprived of her civic rights by the government of the day, Anura became Sri Lanka's leader of the opposition.

After her rights were restored in 1988, Sirimavo Bandaranaike returned to parliament as opposition leader, while her son, in 1993, crossed over to the then governing party.

Then, in 1994, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sirimavo's daughter and Anura's sister, became president and her mother once again prime minister, while Anura remained an opposition party member.

Kumaratunga was re-elected president in December last year and Anura was elected speaker Wednesday.

Whether the family will make as big an impact far into the new century remains to be seen.

Only President Kumaratunga has children, Yasodhara and Vimukthi who are still students in their teens, but if they too take to politics, the family tradition in Sri Lanka's parliament seems sets to continue.