The veteran Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the world's first woman head of government, yesterday announced she was stepping down because of poor health.
Mrs Bandaranaike (84) is the mother of President Chandrika Kumaratunga and as Prime Minister held only a ceremonial position in her daughter's government.
Mrs Bandaranaike, from a wealthy feudal family, entered politics unexpectedly when she succeeded her husband, Solomon, who was shot dead by a Buddhist monk at their home in 1959.
A shy housewife who had stayed in the background during her husband's reign, she accepted a call by his supporters to head the Sri Lanka Freedom Party he founded and led it to victory in the July 1960 elections.
Since then she has been Prime Minister of the Indian Ocean island three times and has led her party, the People's Alliance, through nearly four decades.
Following her husband's policy of nationalisation, Mrs Bandaranaike was responsible for taking radical measures which altered the political and economic landscape of Sri Lanka. She nationalised denominational schools and life insurance and made the language of the majority Sinhalese community the country's official language.
She is remembered for both her statesmanship and her socialist policies during the Cold War years that some say contributed to Sri Lanka's underdevelopment. She adopted major land reforms, restricting land ownership to 50 acres and placed a ceiling on ownership of property.
Mrs Bandaranaike used her influence with both India and China to play a key role in defusing tensions between the two states after their brief border war in 1962. She was also one of the founder members of the Non-Aligned Movement.
In her later years, she faced rifts over the succession to the party leadership, with the strongest candidates being her daughter, Chandrika, and son, Anura. Mrs Bandaranaike was said to have favoured her daughter, leading Anura to quit his mother's party and join the main opposition United National Party.
Ill health prevented her from campaigning in the 1994 parliamentary elections, in which her daughter led the party to victory, a few months later becoming Sri Lanka's first woman president.
In the last few years, Mrs Bandaranaike has played little role in government, being confined to a wheelchair and unable to walk.