Sri Lankabhimanya Ranasinghe Premadasa was the third President of Sri Lanka from 2 January 1989 until his assassination in 1993. He also served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 6 February 1978 to 2 January 1989. This makes Premadasa the longest-serving uninterrupted Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, having served in the post for nearly 11 years. He was the first person to be conferred with Sri Lanka's highest civilian award, the Sri Lankabhimanya in 1986 by President J. R. Jayewardene.

Junius Richard Jayewardene, commonly abbreviated in Sri Lanka as J.R., was a Sri Lankan lawyer, Public official and a stateman who served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1977 to 1978 and as the second President of Sri Lanka from 1978 to 1989. He was a leader of the nationalist movement in Ceylon who served in a variety of cabinet positions in the decades following independence. A longtime member of the United National Party, he led it to a landslide victory in 1977 and served as prime minister for half a year before becoming the country's first executive president under an amended constitution.