Ruwan Wijewardene

Born to a political dynasty, he is the youngest son of Ranjani Senanayake and Ranjith Wijewardene (Chairman of Wijeya Newspapers). His maternal great-grandfather, Rt Hon D.S Senanayake, was the first prime minister of Ceylon and his grand uncle, Dudley Senanayake, was the second prime minister of Ceylon and went on to become prime minister two more times during the 1950s and 1960s. His paternal grandfather, D. R. Wijewardena, was a press baron who was a leader in the Sri Lankan independence movement. A successful entrepreneur, he established Lake House newspapers and played a major role in the independence movement. Ruwan Wijewardene is a nephew of the first executive president J.R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka and the cousin of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the current President of Sri Lanka.^[9][10]

Wijewardene completed his primary and secondary education at St. Thomas' Preparatory School. He then pursued further studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, where he earned a BA in Political science.

Wijewardene contested the Western Provincial elections in 2009 and was a member of the Western Provincial Council until 2010. He stood for parliamentary elections 2010 and secured the highest number of preference votes from Gampaha District. He lost his seat in parliament in 2020 general elections. He was elected as deputy leader of the UNP on 14 September 2020 and he is tipped to be the next Leader of the United National Party.^{[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]}

• List of political families in Sri Lanka
• List of Govigama people

• Wijewardene Ancestry
• The Senanayake Ancestry
• Sri Lanka Parliament profile
• Sri Lanka blasts: Lanka's Deputy Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene talks to WION. WION.