Ceylonese parliamentary election, 1956

3rd Ceylonese parliamentary election

1952 ← 5-10 April 1956 → 1960 (March)

95 seats to the House of Representatives of Ceylon 48 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party   Leader S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike N. M. Perera Party Mahajana Eksath Peramuna Lanka Sama Samaja Party Leader's seat Attanagalla Ruwanwella Seats won 51 14 Popular vote 1,046,277 274,204 Percentage 39.52% 10.36%

Prime Minister before election John Kotelawala United National Party Prime Minister-designate S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike Mahajana Eksath Peramuna

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.

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.

The Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party campaigned for parity of status between Sinhala and Tamil, with both to jointly replace English as the official language.

The Tamil parties campaigned to keep English as the official language.

SLFP leader S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike assembled a coalition with a group of small Marxist parties to form the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna.

Results

Bandaranaike's coalition obtained a solid majority government and he became prime minister.

e • d Summary of the 1956 Ceylonese parliamentary election

Party		Candidates	Votes	%	Seats
	Mahajana Eksath Peramuna Sinhala Language Front Sri Lanka Freedom Party Viplavakari Lanka Sama Samaja Party	60	1,046,277	39.52	51
	Lanka Sama Samaja Party	21	274,204	10.36	14
	Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi	14	142,758	5.39	10
	United National Party	76	738,810	27.91	8
	Communist Party of Ceylon	9	119,715	4.52	3
	All Ceylon Tamil Congress	1	8,914	0.34	1
	Others	68	316,569	11.96	8
Valid Votes		249	2,647,247	100.00	95
Rejected Votes
Total Votes Polled
Total Electors Polled1			2,391,538
Registered Electors			3,464,159
Turnout			69.12%
Source: Sri Lanka Statistics 1. Total electors polled is less than total votes polled due to multiple-member seats where electors can cast more than one vote.

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.^{[citation needed]}

The hard feelings from this campaign contributed towards the eruption nearly three decades later of the path to civil war.^{[citation needed]}

However, it also changed the character of politics in the country from the elitism that had characterised it hitherto. Members of Parliament from other parties than the Left were middle class, working class or farmers. Henceforth electorates were addressed in their mother tongue at election meetings (as the LSSP and CP had done from inception) instead of English.^{[citation needed]}

References

• "Result of Parliamentary General Election 1956". Department of Elections, Sri Lanka. http://www.slelections.gov.lk/pdf/Results_1956%20GENERAL%20ELECTION.PDF. 
• "1956 General Election Results". LankaNewspapers.com. http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/election/general_election1956.jsp. 
• "Table 33 Parliament Election (1956)". Sri Lanka Statistics. 10 February 2009. http://www.jpp.co.jp/lanka/gov/govd/govde/gov33e.htm. 
• Rajasingham, K. T. (24 November 2001). "Chapter 16: 'Honorable wounds of war'". Sri Lanka: The Untold Story. Asia Times. http://atimes.com/ind-pak/CK24Df05.html.