evidence: An alumnus of the Royal College of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s most prestigious educational institution, Wickremesinghe won his first parliamentary election in 1977. After serving as an important minister in his uncle JR and his successor Ranasinghe Premadasa’s Cabinet for long, in a quirk of fate, he became the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka after the assassination of President Premadasa in 1993. [...] Towards the end of 2014, something unthinkable happened. Wickremesinghe secretly joined hands with his rival Chandrika to oust Rajapaksa. Their joint candidate Maithripala Sirisena shocked the Rajapaksa camp by defeating the all-powerful Mahinda in the Presidential elections. It was a high point in Ranil’s long political journey. He became the Prime Minister, promising to abolish the executive presidency, which he could not do. In an evening coup in the winter of 2018, Sirisena shocked Wickremesinghe by dismissing him and installing Mahinda as the PM. After two months of political uncertainty and backroom negotiations, Mahinda lost the trust vote and Ranil returned as the PM again.