Kalutara District Parliamentarian Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to step down from Parliament to become Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United States.

Samarasinghe. a a former diplomat, contested the last parliamentary election as a member of the SLFP .

Samarasinghe served as a diplomat in various capacities before he joined active politics.

Having joined the Sri Lanka Overseas Service, he served as the First Secretary to the Sri Lanka High Commission in Australia and as Counselor for the Sri Lankan Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva during the 1980s. He has represented Sri Lanka at the International Labour Organization, World Health Organization, International Telecommunication Union and the World Meteorological Organisation.

While working at the Sri Lanka Mission in Geneva, he represented Sri Lanka at almost all of the Governing Body meetings of the International Labour Organization in 1986 and 1987, as well as the International Labour Conference from 1985 to 1987. At the end of the 1987 ILC, he successfully presented a draft resolution on ‘Workers Housing,' which was adopted at the conference.