COLOMBO, Sept 18: Najeeb Abdul Majeed of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) became Lanka’s first Muslim chief minister of the Eastern Province in Trincomalee on Tuesday.

With an SLFP man becoming chief minister of the Eastern Province, all the eight Lankan provinces have elected councils, all headed by SLFP members. And for the first time in the history of the island nation, Lanka’s Grand Old Party, United National Party (UNP), does not control a single province.

Najeeb Abdul Majeed, 55, comes from a family of SLFP loyalists from the Mutur-Kinniya area in Trincomalee district. His father, Latheef Abdul Majeed, was deputy minister of information in the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government between 1970 and 1977. In 1988, Latheef was killed by the Tamil Tigers. Stepping into his father’s shoes, Najeeb Abdul Majeed won the parliamentary elections in 1994, 2000, 2001 and 2004.

He was a deputy minister and a non-cabinet minister in the governments of President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa. After failing to make it to parliament in the 2010 elections, he contested the Eastern Provincial Council elections held on September 8. Najeeb was the only SLFP Muslim to win.