Ranasinghe Premadasa
President of Sri Lanka from 1989 to 1993
Sri Lankabhimanya Ranasinghe Premadasa (Sinhala: රණසිංහ ප්රේමදාස Raṇasiṃha Premadāsa; Tamil: ரணசிங்க பிரேமதாசா Raṇaciṅka Pirēmatācā; 23 June 1924 – 1 May 1993) was a Sri Lankan politician and statesman who served as the third president of Sri Lanka from 1989 until his assassination in 1993. He previously served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1978 to 1989, with his tenure making him the longest-serving uninterrupted Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
Amongst Sri Lankans, Premadasa has left behind a mixed legacy. While he was seen as a spokesperson of the poor, common man, his handling of the country's two civil conflicts, the JVP insurrection and the Sri Lankan civil war, have been heavily criticised. He was the first person to be conferred with the Sri Lankabhimanya, Sri Lanka's highest civilian award, in 1986 by president J. R. Jayewardene.
Early life
Ranasinghe Premadasa was born on 23 June 1924 at Dias Place, Colombo 11, to the family of Richard Ranasinghe (Ranasinghe Mudalali) of Kosgoda and Battuwita Jayasinghe Arachchige Ensina Hamine of Batuwita, Horana. Premadasa was the oldest of five children, with three sisters and one brother. His father was engaged in the transport business in Colombo employing rickshaws.
He received his early education at the Purwarama temple under Ven. Welitara Sri Pannananda and secondary education at Lorenz College, Skinner's Road, South Maradana and at St.
“Ranasinghe Premadasa” enters the record as president of Sri Lanka from 1989 to 1993. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ranasinghe, Premadasa and President can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q472323. VIAF identifies the subject as 7872149296212780670004. The Library of Congress control number is n81072047. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 1993, 1989 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ranasinghe Premadasa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.