Ceylonese parliamentary election, 1956
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General elections were held in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1956. They were a watershed in the country's political history, and was the first elections fought to challenge the ruling United National Party. The former Leader of the House, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who was passed over after the death of the first Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake, crossed over to the opposition to form the Sri Lanka Freedom Party to launch his bid for Prime Minister.
[edit] Background
The UNP government of John Kotelawala had been rapidly losing steam. It faced widespread criticism over Ceylon's poor economic performance. Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party now championed a popular socialist platform, calling for English to be replaced by Sinhala as the island's official language.
The UNP resisted this out of deference to Ceylon's Tamil minority, but changed its position in early 1956. This only served to cost the UNP its Tamil support while gaining it little among the Sinhalese.
SLFP leader S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike assembled a coalition with a group of small Marxist parties to form the MEP.
[edit] Results
Bandaranaike's coalition obtained a solid majority government and he became prime minister.
| Parties | Votes | % | Seats | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (SLFP, VSSP, and BP coalition) | 1,046,277 | 39.5 | 51 | ||
| Lanka Sama Samaja Party | 274,204 | 10.4 | 14 | ||
| Federal Party | 142,758 | 5.4 | 10 | ||
| United National Party | 738,810 | 27.9 | 8 | ||
| Communist Party | 119,715 | 4.5 | 3 | ||
| Tamil Congress | 8,914 | 0.3 | 1 | ||
| Others | 316,569 | 12.0 | 8 | ||
| Totals | 2,391,538 | 100.0 | 95 | ||
[edit] Legacy
The SLFP campaign of 1956 was the first in Ceylon's history where communal feelings against the minority Tamil community were deliberately stirred up by Sinhalese politicians for electoral gain. The SLFP tried to blame the high unemployment Sinhalese youth faced on the Tamils, and in effect promised not to correct injustices but to openly discriminate against Tamils via a policy of official unilingualism.
The hard feelings from this campaign embarked Ceylon on the path to civil war.
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