The Sri Lanka Freedom Party was formed with a split of the governing UNP in 1951. Thereafter, the party has gone through several splits.
The party was formed after former Minister of the United National Party government SWRD Bandaranaike walked over to the opposition with the intent of launching a new party.
Bandaranaike made this move on July 12, 1951. Several other MPs had pledged support to this move. However, only five of them actually joined him. They were:
1. Horana MP A.P. Jayasuriya
2. Colombo North MP George R de Silva
3. Udugama MP D.S. Gunasekara
4. Balangoda MP Jayaweera Kuruppu
5. Beliatta MP D.A. Rajapaksa
The Sri Lanka Freedom Party was formed on September 2, 1951. Crown Counselor H Sri Nissanka proposed the name to the new party. The party contested the 1952 General Election and received 9 seats.
Prior to the 1956 General Election, the party formed an alliance named the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna. The MEP swept to power in 1956 General Election.
Bandaranaike was assassinated in September 1959. Following the assassination, Wijayananda Dahanayake became Prime Minister. The SLFP was swept by internal strife.
Dahanayake himself added to the confusion. He had far reaching ambitions, and created his own party, the Ceylon Democratic Party. IMRA Iriyagolla formed the Samajawadi Janatha Peramuna (Socialist People's Front). S.D. Bandaranaike left the SLFP to form the Bosath Bandaranaike Peramuna (Bosath Bandaranaike Front).
Given the situation, the SLFP managed to do better than expected, winning 46 out of 151 total seats. The UNP won only 50. A considerable number of votes for the SLFP were sympathy votes. The UNP could not muster a majority and the government fell in days.
Splinter Groups Fail
Interestingly, no splinter group had enough backing to do well in the election. Iriyagolla ran 40 candidates. However, he was the only one who was elected. S.D. Bandaranaike could put forward only two candidates. He won Gampaha, but his other candidate came 7th out of 7 in Minuwangoda.
However, the catastrophic failure was that of Dahanayake. His CDP contested in 101 seats but his party was routed. Dahanayake himself lost his seat in Galle.
Elections were called for July. CP de Silva, Chairman of the Party in the interim period, gave way for Bandaranaike's widow Sirima RD Bandaranaike. SLFP was swept into power in the July 1960 election.
Throne Speech 'coup'
CP de Silva would lead the next great exodus from the SLFP. During the Throne Speech of 1964, he led a dissident group and sat in the opposition. He had been disturbed bu the new alliance between the SLFP and the leftist Lanka Sama Samaja Party and Communist Party. The government collapsed after losing the vote on the Throne Speech.
Interestingly, Mahanama Samaraweera, father of the current Foreign Minister, was part of the dissident group.
The new group formed the Sri Lanka Freedom Socialist Party. The party contested for 35 seats in the 1965 Election and won 5. Three of them received Cabinet appointments in the "Hath Havula" coalition government led by the UNP. The party, however, did not last long. Most of its members ended up in the UNP.
Following the victory of the 1970 General Election, the SLFP enjoyed a period of stability, which was lost after the route at the 1977 Election and the removal of Sirima Bandaranaike's civic rights in 1980. There were internal strife throughout the 1980s. A group led by Sirima Bandaranaike's son-in-law Vijaya Kumaratunga, his wife Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Ossie Abeygunasekera and TB Illangaratne formed the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party in 1984.
Sister arrives, brother leaves
By 1993, there was a movement to forge a new opposition alliance against the UNP. Chandrika, who had left the country shortly after her husband's assassination in 1988, was brought back as the leader of the new movement, which was named the People's Alliance. With her involvement, her brother Anura left for the UNP with several other MPs.
The People's Alliance was in power till 2001. In that year, a group led by the then SLFP General Secretary S.B. Dissanayake joined the UNP. The government fell, and the subsequent election saw the UNP's victory. Bandaranaike was the executive president and UNP's Ranil Wickremesinghe became Prime Minister.
This was a tense period, which ended with the dissolution of Parliament in February 2004. The PA and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna had formed a new alliance, the United People's Freedom Alliance. It came to power at the April 2004 election.
In 2005, Mahinda Rajapaksa was selected as the presidential candidate of the UPFA. He narrowly won the election. Afterwards, Kumaratunga was sidelined. However, the party remained united, with one major incident marring the unity. In early 2007, the then Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Sripathy Sooriyaarachchi and Anura Bandaranaike left to form the SLFP (Mahajana) Wing after they were sacked from the Cabinet. Sooriyaarachchi died in an accident almost exactly one year afterwards. Anura Bandaranaike too passed away in another month's time. Samaraweera ended up in the UNP.
Common Candidate
There was a consolidation of power by Rajapaksa allies until late 2014, when the then SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena defected to the opposition, while not leaving the party. He became the 'common candidate' of the opposition for the January 2015 Presidential Election, and won it defeating Rajapaksa.
Sirisena soon took over the party and consolidated his position. However, the Rajapaksa camp, which is still strong within the SLFP and the UPFA managed to win a number of seats at the August 2015 General Election. While the SLFP decided to form a unity government with the UNP, the MPs of the Rajapaksa camp chose to remain in the opposition.
In early November 2016, the formation of the Sri Lanka Podujana Party under the leadership of Prof. G.L. Peiris was announced. Peiris was a member of SLFP, and his membership was promptly suspended. Former Minister Basil Rajapaksa also joined the party. However, it is unclear as to what the Rajapaksa camp MPs would do.
