News
Speaker and deputy Speaker
By Saman Indrajith
Senior southern politician Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena was unanimously appointed as the 26th Speaker of Parliament of Sri Lanka yesterday.Abeywardena entered Parliament in 1983 as a UNP MP by winning the Hakmana by-election.
He was one of the two MPs to vote against the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which came about as a result of the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord in 1987. He was removed from the UNP for violating party rules and later joined a breakaway faction of the UNP, the DUNF. He joined the SLFP in 2015.
Born on 10th October, 1945 in Makandura, Matara, Yapa Abeywardena received his primary education from Thelijjavila Central College and Rahula College, Matara. He then obtained his first degree from the University of Colombo. He has also received specialised training in Management from the Institute of Management, Chandigarh in India.
From 1993 and 2001 he was a member of the Southern Provincial Council; he served as Chief Minister from 1994 to 2001.
Ranjith Siyambalapitiya, who was appointed Deputy Speaker completed his primary education at Vandala junior school and later joined Royal College, Colombo.
He first entered Parliament in 2004, as an MP for the Kegalle district. In 2005, he was appointed the Deputy Minister of Finance and Senior Minister under President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In 2007, he also served as the Minister of Finance and Revenue.
During the 2010 parliamentary elections, he was elected to Parliament with the highest number of preferential votes of 146,623 from the Kegalle district. He became the Deputy Minister of Economic Development and the Cabinet Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology. After the 2015 election, he served as Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, State Ministry of Environment and Cabinet Minister of Power and Renewable Energy.
He was subsequently elected as the State Minister of Education after the victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.