Junius Richard Jayewardene (1906–1996) was the first Executive President of Sri Lanka, holding office from 1978 to 1989, having become Prime Minister after the United National Party's landslide victory in 1977.
A lawyer by training, he entered the State Council in 1943 and was Minister of Finance in the first cabinet after independence. He is remembered internationally for his intervention at the 1951 San Francisco peace conference, where he argued against punitive reparations on Japan, quoting the Buddhist teaching that hatred ceases not by hatred but by love.
His presidency introduced the 1978 constitution, which replaced the Westminster system with an executive presidency, and opened the economy to trade and investment after decades of import substitution. The same period saw the July 1983 anti-Tamil violence and the escalation of the civil war, and the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord.