Junius Richard Jayewardene (17 September 1906 – 1 November 1996) was Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 23 July 1977 to 4 February 1978 (succeeding Sirimavo Bandaranaike and preceding Ranasinghe Premadasa) and President of Sri Lanka from 4 February 1978 to 2 January 1989 (succeeding William Gopallawa and preceding Premadasa).
Biography[]
Junius Richard Jayewardene was born in Colombo, Ceylon on 17 September 1906, and he became politically active during the 1940s, joining Don Stephen Senanayake's United National Party upon its foundation in 1946. In the following governments of Senanayake and his son respectively, he served as Finance Minister (1947–53), Agriculture Minister (1953-6), and as Minister of State (1965–70). He became chairman of the parliamentary party in 1970, and became the leader of the UNP after the death of the younger Senanayake in 1973. He guided the UNP to a landslide electoral victory, and stabilized its power through winning a further victory in 1982, and an extension of his term in office to six years through a referendum. In 1978, he changed the constitution towards a presidential system, and the electoral system to proportional representation, to give greater weight to the country's troubled ethnic minorities. He was firmly committed to the West, and reversed most of Sirimavo Bandaranaike's socialist policies. However, he was unable to prevent Tamil unrest from developing into civil war in 1983, nor Indian interference through occupation of the Tamil areas in 1987.