Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan politician who served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1960 to 1965, from 1970 to 1977, and from 1994 to 2000. A chairperson of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), she was the first woman in the world to be elected prime minister in 1960.
Born into a Sinhalese Kandyan aristocratic family, Bandaranaike was educated in Catholic, 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.