The Rise & Fall of Leadership Groups
INTRODUCTION: SRI LANKAN POLITICAL PARTIES
More than five decades of independence for Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, has witnessed the rise of a political system with basically stable political parties. Before the 1980s two major parties formed to create a two-party political system consisting of the United National Party (UPN) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). After the 1980s, internal factions in these parties and increasing minority activism gave rise to a number of parties. Some of these are factions within the two main parties, while others are independent of them or represent the extreme.
The UNP came into existence in 1946, championed and led by Don Stephen Senanayake and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike (Political, 2002, 1). By the early 1950s Senanayake, who served as Sri LankaÆs first Prime Minister, broke away from the UNP and formed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Like modern day political parties in Sri Lanka, these parties often consisted of factions with differing attitudes and ideas and hostile to each other. A Library of Congress document holds by the 1970s, the UPN was ôorganized around power personalities and politically influential families rather than a consistent ideology or a strong party organizationö (Political, 2002, 2).
The SLFP has a leftist character in comparison to the UNP moderate right leanings. While part of the UNP Bandaranaike maintained a faction known as the Sinhala Maha Sabha which he carried with hi, to the SLFP. The group aimed at preserving the Sinhala culture and its interests. The party adopted a platform that was bolstered by nonrevolutionary socialism and a Sinhala-only language policy. While the UNP is free-market oriented the SLFP has adopted a course of economic self-sufficiency, nationalization of major enterprises, creation of a comprehensive welfare state, redistribution of wealth, and a nonaligned foreign policy favoring clo...