No old boy of a leading Colombo school, he was more than a match for Rajapaksa's rural appeal.  

In the run up to the election, he pledged to abolish the executive presidency within 100 days of being elected, repeal the controversial 18th amendment, re-instate the 17th amendment and appoint UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe as Prime Minister.

Sirisena took on the ruling family, charging that the country was heading towards a dictatorship with corruption and nepotism prevailing.

Accused of being a proxy of former president Chandrika Kumaratunga, who asked her loyalists to vote for him, Sirisena vowed to root out corruption and bring constitutional reforms to weaken the power of the presidency.