Births on March 24

Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician, 13th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

Ranil Wickremesinghe (Sinhala: රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ, Tamil: ரணில் விக்கிரமசிங்க; born 24 March 1949) is a Sri Lankan politician and a Member of Parliament from the National List of the United National Party. He is the leader of the United National Party since 1994. He served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1993 to 1994, 2001 to 2004, 2015 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019 and has served as Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 2001 and from 2004 to 2015.

Born to a wealthy, political family, he graduated from University of Ceylon and qualified as an Advocate from the Ceylon Law College in 1972. Entering active politics in the mid 1970s with the United National Party, he was first elected to Parliament from the Biyagama electorate in the 1977 parliamentary elections and was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, by his uncle President J. R. Jayewardene. He was thereafter appointed Minister of Youth Affairs and Employment, becoming the youngest Cabinet Minister in Sri Lanka. In 1989, President Ranasinghe Premadasa, appointed Wickremesinghe as the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Leader of the House. He succeeded D. B. Wijetunga as Prime Minister in 1993 following the assassination of Premadasa and Wijetunga succession the presidency. He was appointed Leader of the Opposition in November 1994 following the assassination of Gamini Dissanayake during the campaign for the 1994 presidential election. On 8 January 2015, Wickremesinghe was appointed as prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena, who had defeated President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2015 presidential election.Wickremesinghe's coalition alliance, the United National Front for Good Governance, won the 2015 parliamentary election with 106 seats. Although it fell short of an outright majority, Wickremesinghe was re-elected as Prime Minister with over 35 Sri Lanka Freedom Party members joining his cabinet. Wickremesinghe was removed as Prime Minister on 26 October 2018 by President Maithripala Sirisena with the appointment of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, which Wickremesinghe refused to accept, resulting in a constitutional crisis. The constitutional crisis ended with Sirisena re-appointing Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister on 16 December 2018. He resigned as Prime Minister on 20 November 2019, and was again succeed by Mahinda Rajapaksa following the 2019 presidential election. He contested the following parliamentary elections in 2020, but failed to secure a seat in Parliament. He re-entered Parliament as a National List MP of the United National Party, and was sworn in as a member of parliament on the 23rd of June 2021.