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Sri Lanka THE POLITICAL PARTY SYSTEM
One of the most striking features of the political system in
the more than four decades since independence has been the
existence of viable and generally stable political parties. In
the general elections held between 1952 and 1977, a two-party
system emerged in which the UNP and the SLFP alternately secured
majorities and formed governments. Observers noted, however, that
one major failure of the two-party system was the unwillingness
or inability of the UNP and the SLFP to recruit substantial
support among Tamils. As a result, this minority was largely
excluded from party politics.
On the basis of ethnicity, three types of parties could be
defined in the late 1980s: Sinhalese-backed parties including the
UNP, the SLFP, Marxist parties, such as the Lanka Sama Samaja
Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, and the
numerically insignificant splinter groups; a largely inoperative
Tamil party system composed of the Tamil United Liberation Front
(TULF); and other minority-oriented parties, such as the Ceylon
Workers' Party, which enjoyed the support of the Indian Tamils,
and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. The situation was complicated
by the fact that extremist groups, such as the Sinhalese-based
People's Liberation Front (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna--JVP) in
southern Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers based in the Northern and
Eastern provinces, challenged the legal parties for popular
support. By the late 1980s, both the intransigence of the
Jayewardene government and the use of intimidation tactics by
extremists in Jaffna District and parts of Eastern Province
dramatically reduced popular backing among Tamils for the
relatively moderate TULF.
The political party system was also weakened by the
determination of the UNP leadership to retain a solid
parliamentary majority through the use of constitutional
amendments
(see Sri Lanka - Government Institutions
, this ch.). During the
1980s, various UNP measures undermined the balance between the
two major parties that had been an important factor behind the
political stability of the years between 1952 and 1977. The
extension of the life of Parliament until 1989 and the passage of
the amendment prohibiting the advocacy of separatism, which
resulted in the expulsion of TULF members from Parliament,
created new political grievances. The Jayewardene government's
decision to deprive SLFP leader Sirimavo Bandaranaike of her
civil rights for seven years for alleged abuses of power in
October 1980 also weakened the two-party system because it
deprived the SLFP of its popular leader.
Despite drastic constitutional changes since 1972, the party
system's British heritage is readily apparent in the clear
distinction made between government and opposition legislators in
Parliament (sitting, as in Westminster, on opposite benches) and
provisions in the 1978 Constitution to prevent defections from
one party to another, previously a common practice. Backbenchers
are expected to follow the initiatives of party leaders and can
be punished with expulsion from the party for failing to observe
party discipline.
Data as of October 1988
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