Fowzie returns to Parliament replacing SJB’s Mujibur Rahuman
COLOMBO – Former Mayor of Colombo, one-time United National Party (UNP) stalwart and later Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) heavyweight, A. H. M. Fowzie has returned to Parliament as an opposition MP.
Fowzie was sworn in as a member of the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) before Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on Thursday (9) morning.
The senior politician replaces SJB’s Mujibur Rahuman who resigned to run for Colombo mayor at the local government elections scheduled for March 9.
Fowzie, who secured 48,701 votes from the party’s Colombo District list at the 2020 parliamentary polls was next in line for the seat.
He was elected as the 16th Mayor of Colombo in 1973 on the UNP ticket. Prior to that, he was elected Deputy Mayor in 1968 and a year later made history as Sri Lanka’s first ever candidate to hand over nominations for an election while being away from the country.
In 1973, Fowzie defeated a no confidence motion and crossed over to the SLFP taking 14 members of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) with him, and the very next year he became the first SLFP Mayor of Colombo.
Following a stint at the Western Provincial Council to which he was elected after leading the SLFP-led People’s Alliance (PA) coalition, he entered Parliament for the first time in 1994 and became a member of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s cabinet.
Two months before Sri Lanka’s military conflict with the separatist Tamil Tigers ended, Fowzie narrowly escaped a bomb blast in Akuressa, Matara, that was attended by him and several ministers during a Muslim religious festival.
-economynext.com
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