The 33rd death anniversary of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa was marked on Friday with a commemorative ceremony at Aluthkade, Colombo, where Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa led floral tributes at his father’s statue.
Former First Lady Hema Premadasa attended alongside family members, relatives and several political leaders for the simple ceremony held near the statue. Floral tributes were placed at the monument honouring the late leader’s legacy.
Ranasinghe Premadasa served as Sri Lanka’s third executive President from 1989 until his assassination on May 1, 1993, when an LTTE suicide bomber detonated a device during a United National Party May Day rally in Colombo. The attack also killed 17 others and remains one of the most consequential political assassinations in the country’s post-independence history.
The anniversary fell on the same day Sajith Premadasa led the SJB May Day rally in Colombo — the centrepiece event in the party’s calendar. The SJB was founded in 2020 by Sajith Premadasa after splitting from the UNP, and routinely uses the May 1 commemorations to anchor its political messaging in Ranasinghe Premadasa’s pro-poor economic legacy.
The annual tribute draws cross-party participation given Premadasa’s working-class roots and his housing, garment and free school uniforms programmes that shaped social policy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
