Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Prime Minister of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) from 1960–65, 1970–77, 1994–2000
Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike (née Ratwatte; 17 April 1916 – 10 October 2000), commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan stateswoman who thrice served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1960 to 1965, from 1970 to 1977, and from 1994 to 2000. She was the first woman in the world to be democratically elected prime minister in 1960. A chairperson of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) from 1960 to 1994, she pursued socialist economic policies and promoted Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. Bandaranaike was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and later served as chairperson of the organisation from 1976 to 1977, becoming the first woman to lead the organisation. Her combined tenure of 17 years and 211 days in office, spanning three non-consecutive terms, makes her the longest-serving prime minister in Sri Lankan history.
Born into a Sinhalese Kandyan aristocratic family, Bandaranaike was educated in Anglican, English-medium schools, but remained a Buddhist, and spoke Sinhala as well as English. As a hostess for her husband S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who founded the socialist SLFP in 1951 and became prime minister in 1956, she became an informal advisor, and focused on improving the lives of women and girls in rural areas of Sri Lanka.
Following her husband's assassination in 1959, she was persuaded by the party leadership to join active politics and succeed her late husband as chairwoman, and returned her party to government by defeating prime minister Dudley Senanayake's UNP in the July 1960 election. Her opponents dubbed her as the "Weeping Widow". As a result of her election victory, the British press coined the term "stateswoman" as they could not use "statesman".
“Sirimavo Bandaranaike” enters the record as prime Minister of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) from 1960–65, 1970–77, 1994–2000. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sirimavo, Bandaranaike and Prime 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 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q194291. VIAF identifies the subject as 35990804. The Library of Congress control number is n88000500. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2000, 1960 and 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sirimavo Bandaranaike” 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.