1956 Ceylonese parliamentary election

Sri Lankan government elections December 2019 1956 Ceylonese parliamentary election Ceylon parliamentary 1951 no 1952 Ceylonese parliamentary election 1952 March 1960 Ceylonese parliamentary election March 1960 3rd Parliament of Ceylon 95 seats to the House of Representatives of Ceylon 48 seats were needed for a majority 5–10 April 1956 Official Photographic Portrait of S.W.R.D.Bandaranayaka (1899-1959).jpg S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike 1956 MEP Attanagalla 15.52%, 9 seatsAs the Sri Lanka Freedom Party 51 42 1,046,277 39.52% 24.00pp N. M. Perera 1945 Lanka Sama Samaja Party Ruwanwella 13.11%, 9 seats 14 5 274,204 10.36% 2.75pp File:Sir-John-Lionel-Kotelawala.webp John Kotelawala 1953 United National Party Dodangaslanda 44.08%, 54 seats 8 46 738,810 27.91% 16.17pp S. J. V. Chelvanayakam 1949 ITAK Kankesanthurai 1.95%, 2 seats 10 8 142,758 5.39% 3.44pp Prime Minister Prime Minister after election John Kotelawala S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike United National Party MEP Parliamentary elections were held in Ceylon in 1956. They were a watershed in the country's political history, and were the first elections fought to realistically challenge the ruling United National Party. Former Leader of the House S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike crossed over to the opposition to form the Sri Lanka Freedom Party to launch his bid for Prime Minister. The party won the election with 51 seats, winning a majority in the house. 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. Mahajana Eksath PeramunaIncluding the Sinhala Language Front, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the Viplavakari Lanka Sama Samaja Party. 1046277 51 United National Party 738810 8 Lanka Sama Samaja Party 274204 14 Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi 142758 10 Communist Party of Ceylon 119715 3 Tamil Speaking Front 26170 1 Ceylon Labour Party 18033 0 All Ceylon Tamil Congress 8914 1 Tamil Resistance Front 7931 1 Others and independents 264435 6 2391538 3464159 Report on the Sixth Parliamentary General Election of CeylonReport on the Sixth Parliamentary General Election of Ceylon 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.August 2011 The hard feelings from this campaign contributed towards the eruption, nearly three decades later, of the path to civil war.August 2011 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.August 2011 Notes References http://www.slelections.gov.lk/pdf/Results_1956%20GENERAL%20ELECTION.PDF Result of Parliamentary General Election 1956 Department of Elections, Sri Lanka dead https://web.archive.org/web/20150924115606/http://www.slelections.gov.lk/pdf/Results_1956%20GENERAL%20ELECTION.PDF 24 September 2015 http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/election/general_election1956.jsp 1956 General Election Results LankaNewspapers.com dead https://archive.today/20130127173412/http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/election/general_election1956.jsp 27 January 2013 http://www.jpp.co.jp/lanka/gov/govd/govde/gov33e.htm Table 33 Parliament Election (1956) 10 February 2009 Sri Lanka Statistics 3 October 2010 9 October 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20111009145330/http://www.jpp.co.jp/lanka/gov/govd/govde/gov33e.htm dead http://atimes.com/ind-pak/CK24Df05.html Chapter 16: 'Honorable wounds of war' K. T. Rajasingham 24 November 2001 Sri Lanka: The Untold Story Asia Times 3 October 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20011215123938/http://atimes.com/ind-pak/CK24Df05.html 15 December 2001 unfit Ceylon Category:Parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka Category:April 1956 in Asia Category:Election and referendum articles with incomplete results