Celebrity Deathwatch: Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Former Sri Lankan Prime Minister, 84

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/south/10/10/obit.bandaranaike.ap/index.html

World's first female prime minister dies of heart attack
October 10, 2000
Web posted at: 3:10 PM HKT (0710 GMT)


COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) -- Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the world's first female
prime minister, died of a heart attack Tuesday after voting in parliamentary
elections, a government spokeswoman said.

Bandaranaije had retired at the age of 84 last month to let her daughter,
President Chandrika Kumaratunga, appoint a hard-liner in the fight against
Tamil separatists ahead of the elections.

Bandaranaike had gone to Gampaha, her home town, 22 miles east of Colombo to
cast her vote. She died on the way home, spokeswoman Kusum Rodrigo said.

"I believe it is time for me to quietly withdraw from the humdrum of busy
political life, to a more tranquil and quiet environment," Bandaranaike said
upon her retirement August. 10, ending four decades of political life.

Born Sirimavo Ratwatte on April 17, 1916, Bandaranaike was a member of one
of this Indian Ocean island's wealthiest families. In 1940 she married
Soloman Dias Bandaranaike, a senior politician in the United National Party
that was governing Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon.


Shy housewife became political dynamo

Breaking away to form his own Sri Lanka Freedom Party, her husband was
elected prime minister in 1956. A deranged Buddhist monk assassinated him
three years later.

Bandaranaike was transformed from shy housewife into a political dynamo. She
campaigned for her husband's party in the 1960 elections and became its
leader.

She was elected the first woman head of government on July 20, 1960, six
years before Indira Gandhi became India's first woman prime minister. Her
election was so unusual that newspapers weren't sure what to call her.

"There will be need for a new word. Presumably, we shall have to call her a
Stateswoman," London's Evening News wrote July 21. "This is the
suffragette's dream come true.

In September 1961 at the Neutral Summit Talks in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, she
made history by being the first national leader to say she was speaking "as
a woman and a mother."

Bandaranaike and Indira Gandhi had a strong personal rapport. Both lost
their husbands at a young age and came from upper class families.


Leader made country a republic

Bandaranaike governed until 1965, lost the next elections, then regained
power in 1970.

Reflecting a shift toward the left, Bandaranaike ordered the U.S. Peace
Corps out of the country in 1970 and closed the Israeli Embassy.

In May 1972, Bandaranaike made the country a republic. During her second
term she nationalized private companies, church schools and newspapers and
banned imports.

She used the military to crush a 1971 insurrection by Marxist rebels, and up
to 20,000 are believed to have died.

Parliament expelled her in 1980, accusing her of misusing power while prime
minister, and banned her from office for seven years. Her civic rights were
restored in 1986, and she narrowly lost the election for the new, more
powerful post of president in 1988.

Suffering from diabetes and a foot problem that put her in a wheelchair,
Bandaranaike reduced her political activities.

In 1993, Kumaratunga took over the party's leadership and when elected
president a year later. She appointed her mother prime minister, now a
mostly ceremonial post lacking administrative powers but carrying political
clout with the people.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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