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Sri Lanka The Sri Lanka Freedom Party
In 1951 S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike led his faction, the Sinhala
Maha Sabha, out of the ruling UNP and established the SLFP.
Bandaranaike had organized the Sinhala Maha Sabha in 1937 in
order to promote Sinhalese culture and community interests. Since
the 1950s, SLFP platforms have reflected the earlier
organization's emphasis on appealing to the sentiments of the
Sinhalese masses in rural areas. To this basis has been added the
antiestablishment appeal of nonrevolutionary socialism. On the
sensitive issue of language, the party originally espoused the
use of both Sinhala and Tamil as national languages, but in the
mid-1950s it adopted a "Sinhala only" policy. As the champion of
the Buddhist religion, the SLFP has customarily relied upon the
socially and politically influential Buddhist clergy, the
sangha, to carry its message to the Sinhalese villages.
Another important constituency has been the Sinhalese middle
class, whose members have resented alleged Tamil domination of
the professions, commerce, and the civil service since the
British colonial era. In contrast to the free market orientation
of the UNP, the SLFP's policies have included economic selfsufficiency , nationalization of major enterprises, creation of a
comprehensive welfare state, redistribution of wealth, and a
nonaligned foreign policy that favored close ties with socialist
countries. It has, however, refused to embrace Marxism as its
guiding ideology.
Like the UNP, the SLFP has been a "family party." S.W.R.D.
Bandaranaike was assassinated in 1959. After a brief and somewhat
chaotic interregnum, his widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was chosen
as party leader. In the July 1960 general election, the party won
75 out of 151 parliamentary seats, and in a coalition with
Marxist parties, Mrs. Banaranaike became the world's first
democratically elected female head of government. Although she
was obliged to step down from party leadership after her civil
rights were taken away in October 1980 on charges of corruption
and abuse of power, she resumed leadership of the SLFP following
a government pardon granted on January 1, 1986.
In 1977 six members of the SLFP left the party and formed a
new group, the People's Democratic Party (PDP--Mahajana
Prajathanthra). A second group, the Sri Lanka People's Party
(SLMP--Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya), was formed in 1984 by a
daughter of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Chandrika Kumaratunge, and her
husband Vijay Kumaratunge. They claimed that the original SLFP,
under the leadership of Sirimavo Bandaranaike's son, Anura, was
excessively right wing and had become an instrument of the
Jayewardene government. Although Sirimavo Bandaranaike reentered
politics and assumed a leadership position within the SLFP after
her 1986 pardon, Anura Bandaranaike remained leader of the
parliamentary opposition. Neither the PDP nor the SLPP had
representation in Parliament in 1988.
During the late 1980s, the SLFP and the breakaway SLPP
remained split on the sensitive issue of negotiations with Tamil
separatists. The former opposed the granting of significant
concessions to the militants while the latter joined the UNP in
supporting them. In 1986 Sirimavo Bandaranaike and politically
active members of the Buddhist leadership established the
Movement for Defense of the Nation in order to campaign against
proposed grants of regional autonomy to the Tamils.
Data as of October 1988
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