62 Facts About Maithripala Sirisena

Maithripala Yapa Sirisena is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the seventh president of Sri Lanka from 9 January 2015 to 18 November 2019.

Maithripala Sirisena entered as a member of parliament from Polonnaruwa back in 2020 and ended his tenure in 2024.

Maithripala Sirisena joined mainstream politics in 1989 as a member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka and has held several ministries since 1994.

Maithripala Sirisena was the general-secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and was Minister of Health until November 2014 when he announced his candidacy in the 2015 presidential election as the opposition coalition's "common candidate", thus leading to him running against party leader and incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Maithripala Sirisena pledged to implement a 100-day reform program where he promised to rebalance the executive branch within 100 days of being elected, by reinforcing Sri Lanka's judiciary and parliament, to fight corruption and to investigate allegations of war crimes from 2009, repeal the controversial eighteenth amendment, re-instate the seventeenth amendment and appoint UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister.

Maithripala Sirisena later was reported to have publicly disavowed this program, claiming that he did not know where it originated.

In 2018, Maithripala Sirisena appointed the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa as the prime minister, wrote a letter firing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and prorogued Parliament, all in apparent contradiction to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, instigating a constitutional crisis.

Maithripala Sirisena was born as the eldest of a family of 12 with 5 brothers and 6 sisters, on 3 September 1951 in Yagoda, a village in present-day Gampaha District.

Maithripala Sirisena's father Pallewatte Gamaralalage Albert Sirisena was a World War II veteran who was awarded five acres of paddy land in Polonnaruwa near Parakrama Samudra which resulted in the family moving from Yagoda to Polonnaruwa.

Maithripala Sirisena's mother, Yapa Appuhamilage Dona Nandawathi, was a school teacher.

Maithripala Sirisena was educated at Thopawewa Maha Vidyalaya and Rajakeeya Madya Maha Vidyalaya Polonnaruwa where he first developed an interest in politics.

In 1974 Maithripala Sirisena started working at the Palugasdamana Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society as a purchasing office and in 1976 he became a grama sevaka niladhari but resigned in 1978.

Maithripala Sirisena rose up the SLFP ranks, joining its politburo in 1981, where he was chosen as the president of the All Island SLFP Youth Organisation, and later served as treasurer.

Maithripala Sirisena became president of the All Island SLFP Youth Organisation in 1983.

Maithripala Sirisena studied for three years at the Sri Lanka School of Agriculture, Kundasale from where he earned a diploma in agriculture in 1973.

Maithripala Sirisena contested the 1989 parliamentary election as one of the SLFP's candidates in Polonnaruwa District and was elected to the Parliament.

Maithripala Sirisena was re-elected at the 1994 parliamentary election, this time as a People's Alliance candidate.

Maithripala Sirisena was instead appointed one of the Deputy Presidents of SLFP.

Maithripala Sirisena became general secretary of the SLFP in October 2001 following Dissanayake's defection to the United National Party.

Maithripala Sirisena was appointed Deputy Minister of Irrigation in the new PA government led by Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994.

Maithripala Sirisena was responsible for influencing the government's decision to give farmers a bag of fertiliser for Rs.

Maithripala Sirisena saved the Paddy Marketing Board from privatisation converting it into a government institution when he became the Agriculture Minister, in 2005.

Maithripala Sirisena began important irrigation projects such as Moragahakanda, Kalu and Walawe rivers.

Maithripala Sirisena was re-elected to Parliament at the 2000 parliamentary election and retained his ministerial portfolio.

Maithripala Sirisena was re-elected at the 2001 parliamentary election but the PA lost the election and so Sirisena lost his ministerial position.

Maithripala Sirisena was re-elected at the 2004 parliamentary election as a UPFA candidate.

Maithripala Sirisena resigned as Leader of the House in August 2005.

Maithripala Sirisena was acting defence minister during the last two weeks of the civil war when some of the worst alleged war crimes were committed.

Maithripala Sirisena narrowly escaped death on 9 October 2008 when a convoy he was part of was attacked by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's suicide bomber at Piriwena Junction in Boralesgamuwa, Colombo.

Maithripala Sirisena was re-elected at the 2010 parliamentary election and was appointed minister of health in April 2010.

Maithripala Sirisena introduced a National Medicinal Drug Policy based on that of the Sri Lanka National Pharmaceuticals Policy of Seneka Bibile and brought the Cigarette and Alcohol act to parliament against cigarette packaging that includes pictorial warnings.

In May 2014 Maithripala Sirisena was elected as one of the Vice Presidents of the World Health Assembly.

Maithripala Sirisena claimed that everything in Sri Lanka was controlled by one family and that the country was heading towards a dictatorship with rampant corruption, nepotism and a breakdown of the rule of law.

Maithripala Sirisena has pledged to abolish the executive presidency within 100 days of being elected, repeal the controversial eighteenth amendment, re-instate the seventeenth amendment and appoint UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe as prime minister.

Maithripala Sirisena was the winner in 12 electoral districts whilst Rajapaksa was victorious in the remaining 10.

Maithripala Sirisena dissolved parliament on 26 June 2015 and called for early elections.

However, when faced with criticism concerning the reforms, Maithripala Sirisena publicly disavowed the 100-day reform program.

On 8 July 2015, several factions accused Maithripala Sirisena of having betrayed the mandate that was given to him by the people in the 2015 presidential election over nominating his predecessor Rajapaksa, who faces various allegations of human rights violations, to contest in this election.

On 14 July 2015, at a special press conference, Maithripala Sirisena announced he would remain impartial during the elections after granting the nomination to Rajapaksa, hinted that Rajapaksa could be defeated in the parliamentary election similar to the presidential election.

Maithripala Sirisena was praised for "shepherding an inclusive process" during the elections by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Maithripala Sirisena promptly prorogued Parliament and appointed a new Cabinet of Ministers, in effect creating a parallel government to what was operational in the country at the time, a series of events referred to by the BBC as "somewhere in between House of Cards, Game of Thrones and Shakespeare's darkest Roman plays".

President Maithripala Sirisena who was in Singapore on a personal visit at the time ordered a Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the bombings to identify the perpetrators.

Maithripala Sirisena has refused to appoint Fonseka to a Ministerial post since the 2018 constitutional crisis citing that Fonseka's name had come up in the police investigations in an alleged presidential assassination attempt.

Maithripala Sirisena was highly critical of the Parliamentary Select Committee probe into the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks and incidents in its aftermath appointed by the Speaker of the Parliament of the PSC for summering intelligence and police officers.

Maithripala Sirisena had ordered no public officer to appear for summons issued by the PSC.

Maithripala Sirisena stepped down as president on 18 November 2019 following the 2019 presidential election, having opted not to contest a second term and remain neutral during the election.

Maithripala Sirisena contested 2020 Sri Lankan parliamentary elections from the Polonnaruwa district and was elected to parliament having gained the highest number of preferential votes in the district.

In January 2023, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka ordered Maithripala Sirisena to pay Rs.

On 16 August 2024, Maithripala Sirisena completed the payment of compensation of Rs.

On 31 January 2023, Maithripala Sirisena announced his intention to contest in the 2024 Sri Lankan presidential election at a conference for the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

Maithripala Sirisena would withdraw his campaign the following year and endorse Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe as the SLFP candidate instead.

On 4 April 2024, the Colombo District Court issued an interim injunction temporarily preventing Maithripala Sirisena from functioning as the party chairman until 18 April, following a case filed by former SLFP chairman Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Maithripala Sirisena then filed arbitration proceedings in a Singapore tribunal to stop the Government of Sri Lanka from selling the machinery and scrap.

Centre for Human Rights questioned how Maithripala Sirisena appointed Mahanama as his Chief of Staff while he was under corruption investigations.

In 2015, Maithripala Sirisena criticised and called for the organisers of an Enrique Iglesias concert in Colombo to be whipped, after the behaviour of some female fans.

In October 2018, while addressing the cabinet, Maithripala Sirisena alleged that the Indian Research and Analysis Wing was plotting his assassination.

In November 2018, in the midst of the Constitutional Crisis set off by the President's actions on 26 October 2018, President Maithripala Sirisena took the stage with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa at a rally organised by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna.

In May 2019 it was reported that Maithripala Sirisena was attempting to delay the 2019 Sri Lankan Presidential Election to 20 June 2020 and was seeking an advisory opinion from the Supreme Court in terms of Article 129 of the constitution.

In November 2019, President Maithripala Sirisena issued a presidential pardon to Shramantha Jude Anthony Jayamaha who was serving a life sentence after being convicted of murdering a young woman at the Royal Park apartment complex in Rajagiriya on 30 June 2005 in a high-profile case.

In February 2024, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, quashed the cabinet decision on 15 October 2019 to allow President Maithripala Sirisena the continued use his official residence in Paget Road, Colombo following his term as president.

Maithripala Sirisena is married to Jayanthi Pushpa Kumari, they have two daughters, Chathurika, Dharani, and a son, Daham.

Priyantha was immediately transferred to the hospital in critical condition, where he died from severe head injuries; Maithripala Sirisena was in China on a state visit at the time.