and was reelected to the Parliament securing over 80000 preferential votes. Speaker of the Parliament He was uncontestedly elected as Speaker of the 11th Parliament and served from 18 October 2000 to 10 October 2001, when parliament was dissolved and fresh elections called. Return to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party He rejoined SLFP in 2001 to contest the elections in December that year, although the SLFP with its coalition faced a massive defeat Bandaranaike was elected to Parliament. When the SLFP led alliance of UPFA won the elections in 2004 with support of the JVP, Bandaranaike was reelected as a member of parliament to the Gampaha District and became Minister of Tourism, Industry and Investment in the new government. Following the assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in August 2005, Bandaranaike was appointed as Foreign Minister, amidst increased tension throughout the country. He dropped his position as minister of industry and investment, but remained tourism minister. The party chose Mahinda Rajapakse over Bandaranaike as its candidate for the presidential election in 2005. Following Rajapakse's election victory it had been widely predicted that Bandaranaike would be appointed Prime Minister or remain as foreign minister. However, Rajapakse appointed Ratnasiri Wickremanayake as Prime Minister since many saw Bandaranaike didnot co-operate in the presidential campaign. He was slowly sidelined in the party as the Rajapakse bloc grew. However he was accused of playing a "negative"/"non supportive" role in the campaign and was offered only the tourism ministry instead. Even before the presidential elections in 2005, Anura was diagnosed to have a cancer. He recovered from the initial shock of the bad news but never recovered from the shock of having to accept the toothless National Heritage Portfolio in a cabinet reshuffle in January 2007. On 9 February 2007, he was sacked as the minister of national heritage, together with ministers Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathi Sooriyarachchi after falling out with the President Mahinda Rajapakse, the party leader. Less than two weeks later, after reconciling with Rajapakse, Bandaranaike agreed to come back into the government, again being sworn in as Minister of National Heritage. On the 14 December 2007 he crossed over to the opposition benches thus leaving his ministerial posts. Despite being in politics for over a quarter of a century, he has only been in a governing side for about 5 years. Death Bandaranaike died on 16 March 2008 at Visumpaya, his official residence