The United National Party (UNP, Sinhalese: එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය (pronounced Eksath Jathika Pakshaya), Tamil: ஐக்கிய தேசியக் கட்சி) is a political party in Sri Lanka. At the last legislative elections, held on 2 April 2004, the party was the leading member of the United National Front that won 37.8% of the popular vote and 82 out of 225 seats.

It currently holds the most parliamentary seats of any party in Sri Lanka and is the main opposition party. The Front had held a majority from December 2001 until April 2004, when it had 109 seats, with Ranil Wickremesinghe of the UNP as prime minister. The party lost 27 seats in the 2004 elections. The UNP had previously been the governing party or in the governing coalition from 1947 to 1956, from 1965 to 1970 and from 1977 to 1994. In total, the UNP governed Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) for 33 of 57 years of its independent history. The UNP also had control of the presidency from 1978 to 1994.

The UNP is generally seen as more conservative than the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, favouring a more neo-liberal market-oriented economy.

History

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The UNP was founded on 6 September 1946 by amalgamating three right-leaning pro-dominion parties from the majority Sinhalese community and minority Tamil and Muslim communities. It was founded by Don Stephen Senanayake, who was in the forefront in the struggle for independence from the United Kingdom, having resigned from the Ceylon National Congress because he disagreed with its revised aim of 'the achieving of freedom' from the British Empire.^*. The UNP represented the business community and the landed gentry. However, Senanayake also adopted populist policies that made the party accepted in the grassroots level.

The UNP campaigned in the 1947 general election on a platform of dominion under the United Kingdom and protecting the traditional way of life and Buddhism, the religion followed by the majority of the people, from alleged communist threats from the left-wing opposition parties (the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party of Ceylon). The UNP failed to win ana working majority and cobbled together a coalition with Sinhalese and Tamil elements. Ceylon became a dominion in 1948, with D.S. Senanayake as the first prime minister. He followed a pro-West, anti-Communist foreign policy much to the ire of the Soviet Union. The commanders of the armed forces were all British officers and Britain retained military bases in the country.

The new government proceeded to disenfranchise the plantation workers of Indian descent, the Indian Tamils, using the Citizenship Act of 1948 and the Parliamentary Elections Amendment Act of 1949. These measures were intended primarily to undermine the Left electorally.^*

In 1952 Prime Minister Senanayake died from a riding accident and his son Dudley became Prime Minister. This irked long standing UNP stalwart S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, a Buddhist nationalist leader known for his cente-left views. Bandaranaike quit the party to found the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) as a balancing force between the UNP and Marxist parties. By this

ஐக்கிய தேசியக் கட்சி