Ceylonese parliamentary election, 1970

7th Ceylonese parliamentary election
151 seats to the House of Representatives of Ceylon ; 76 seats were needed for a majority
Prime Minister before election; Dudley Senanayake ; United National Party	Prime Minister-designate; Sirimavo Bandaranaike ; Sri Lanka Freedom Party

Last updated March 18, 2019

General elections were held in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1970.

Between 1948 and 1972, Ceylon was an independent country in the Commonwealth of Nations that shared a monarch with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and certain other sovereign states. In 1948, the British Colony of Ceylon was granted independence as Ceylon. In 1972, the country became a republic within the Commonwealth, and its name was changed to Sri Lanka. It was an island country in South Asia, located about 31 kilometres (19.3 mi) off the southern coast of India.

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea. The island is historically and culturally intertwined with the Indian subcontinent, but is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the commercial capital and largest city, Colombo.

Background

SLFP leader Sirimavo Bandaranaike had come to the conclusion that her party's best hope of power was forming a permanent alliance with Ceylon's Marxist parties. She assembled the SLFP, the Trotskyist LSSP, and the Communists into the United Front coalition. The UF's platform was called the Common Programme; it featured extensive nationalization, a more pro-Soviet foreign policy, expanded social programs, and abolition of the Soulbury constitution.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is one of the major and most well known political parties in Sri Lanka. It was founded by S.W.R.D Bandaranaike in 1951 and, since then, has been one of the two largest parties in the Sri Lankan political arena. It first came to power in 1956 and since then has been the predominant party in government on a number of occasions. The party is generally considered as having a democratic socialist or progressive economic agenda and is often associated with nationalist Sinhala parties. The party follows a Non-Aligned foreign policy but always had close ties to socialist nations.The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is a main constituent party in the United People's Freedom Alliance.

Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan stateswoman. She became the world's first non-hereditary female head of government in modern history, when she was elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1960. She served three terms: 1960–1965, 1970–1977 and 1994–2000.

The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka.

The UNP government of Dudley Senanayake had not made much headway with Ceylon's twin problems of inflation and unemployment. The UNP had become widely perceived as a party of the rich, out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. The UF's socialist platform had much greater appeal.

The United National Party, often abbreviated as UNP, is a political party in Sri Lanka. It currently is the main ruling party in the government of Sri Lanka and is headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe. The UNP is considered to have right-leaning, pro-capitalist, and liberal conservative policies.

Dudley Shelton Senanayake 19 June 1911 – 13 April 1973), was a Sri Lankan statesman who served as Prime Minister of Ceylon from 1952 to 1953, in 1960 and from 1965 to 1970 and Leader of the Opposition from 1960 to 1964. Senanayake's tenures as prime minister were associated with democratic socialist policies focused on agricultural and educational reforms with a pro-western alignment.

In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the purchasing power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange and unit of account within the economy. A chief measure of price inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index, over time. The opposite of inflation is deflation.

Results

The UF (with 49% of the vote) won an overwhelming majority, despite the UNP's plurality of the popular vote, due to the member parties running in different constituencies. The Tamil majority constituencies voted mainly for the two Tamil parties, one of which (the All Ceylon Tamil Congress), later joined the UF.^{[ citation needed ]}

Sri Lankan Tamils or Ceylon Tamils, also known as Eelam Tamils in Tamil, are members of the Tamil ethnic group native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. According to anthropological and archaeological evidence, Sri Lankan Tamils have a very long history in Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since at least around the 2nd century BCE. Most modern Sri Lankan Tamils claim descent from residents of Jaffna Kingdom, a former kingdom in the north of the island and Vannimai chieftaincies from the east. They constitute a majority in the Northern Province, live in significant numbers in the Eastern Province, and are in the minority throughout the rest of the country. 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces.

All Ceylon Tamil Congress, is the oldest Tamil political party in Sri Lanka.

The 1970 election was the last held under the Soulbury constitution. The UF Government established the free, sovereign and independent Republic of Sri Lanka in 1972, breaking the last ties of colonialism.

Sovereignty is the full right and power of a governing body over itself, without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme authority over some polity.

Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over the territory. The opposite of independence is the status of a dependent territory.

A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a “public matter”, not the private concern or property of the rulers. The primary positions of power within a republic are not inherited, but are attained through democracy, oligarchy or autocracy. It is a form of government under which the head of state is not a monarch.

The British-owned plantations were nationalised and there was land reform - giving poor rural people land. Industrial democracy was instituted in the transport and manufacturing sectors. A National pharmaceuticals policy was established, allowing for affordable drugs. A new education policy was followed, aimed at making education more relevant.

A plantation is the large-scale estate meant for farming that specializes in cash crops. The crops that are grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, rubber trees, and fruits. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations were located.

Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural land. Land reform can, therefore, refer to transfer of ownership from the more powerful to the less powerful, such as from a relatively small number of wealthy owners with extensive land holdings to individual ownership by those who work the land. Such transfers of ownership may be with or without compensation; compensation may vary from token amounts to the full value of the land.

Industrial democracy is an arrangement which involves workers making decisions, sharing responsibility and authority in the workplace. While in participative management organizational designs workers are listened to and take part in the decision-making process, in organizations employing industrial democracy they also have the final decisive power.

Increased protection led to growth in the manufacturing sector, particularly in textiles and garments, electronics and industrial machinery.

e • d **Summary of the 1970 Ceylonese parliamentary election** ^[1]
Party		Candidates	Votes	%	Seats
	Sri Lanka Freedom Party	108	1,839,979	36.86%	91
	Lanka Sama Samaja Party	23	433,224	8.68%	19
	United National Party	130	1,892,525	37.91%	17
	Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi	19	245,727	4.92%	13
	Communist Party of Ceylon	9	169,199	3.39%	6
	All Ceylon Tamil Congress	12	115,567	2.32%	3
	Mahajana Eksath Peramuna	4	46,571	0.93%	0
	Others	136	249,006	4.99%	2
Valid Votes		441	4,991,798	100.00%	151
Rejected Votes
Total Votes Polled
Total Electors Polled^{[lower-alpha 1]}
Registered Electors			5,505,028
Turnout^{[lower-alpha 2]}

Notes

↑ Total electors polled is less than total votes polled due to multiple-member seats where electors can cast more than one vote.
↑ Actual turnout was slightly higher due to R. M. Bandara (SLFP) being elected from Welimada Electoral District without a contest.

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References

↑ "Table 37 Parliament Election (1970)". Sri Lanka Statistics. 10 February 2009.

"Result of Parliamentary General Election 1970" (PDF). Department of Elections, Sri Lanka.^{[ permanent dead link ]}
"1970 General Election Results". LankaNewspapers.com. Archived from the original on 10 March 2012.
"Table 37 Parliament Election (1970)". Sri Lanka Statistics. 10 February 2009.
"Sri Lanka Parliamentary Chamber: Parliament Elections Held in 1970" (PDF). Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Rajasingham, K. T. (5 January 2002). "Chapter 21: A further lack of perspicuity". Sri Lanka: The Untold Story. Asia Times.

[[Category:Parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka]

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[2] Total electors polled is less than total votes polled due to multiple-member seats where electors can cast more than one vote.

[3] Actual turnout was slightly higher due to R. M. Bandara (SLFP) being elected from Welimada Electoral District without a contest.

[1] "Table 37 Parliament Election (1970)". Sri Lanka Statistics. 10 February 2009.

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