Ceylon's Political Left: Its Development and Aspirations

Abstract

WX TITH THE OPENING of the Ceylon parliament on July 8, i967, the government of Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake and his United National Party (UNP) began its third year in office, amid mounting problems and increasing signs of unpopularity which even now have begun to accelerate speculation that it will be turned out of office at the next general elections. Since being swept into power in the elections of March i965, the Senanayake government has lost one parliamentary by-election after another, notably in such important areas as Balangoda, Bandarawela, and BenteraElipitiya (in October i966), and in Dodangaslanda (January i967), Welimad (February i967) and Devinuwara (March i967), all of which were lost to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the main party in the present coalition of opposition groups.' In the July i967 parliamentary byelection in Negombo, considered safe for the government, the UNP candidate won with such a greatly reduced margin compared to the i965 election that the conservative Daily Mirror editorially noted the SLFP's moral victory. The Senanayake cabinet's policy of stringent foreign exchange and import controls, which have led to severe commodity shortages, the cut in the rice ration, an inflexible resistance to union pressure for higher wages, communal anxiety among the dominant Sinhalese over the implications of the government-sponsored Indo-Ceylon Citizenship Agreement (Implemen-