Ceylonese parliamentary election, 1952

2nd Ceylonese parliamentary election

← 1947

24-30 May 1952

1956 →

95 seats to the House of Representatives of Ceylon
48 seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Dudley Senanayake	S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike	N. M. Perera
Party	United National Party	Sri Lanka Freedom Party	Lanka Sama Samaja Party
Leader since	1952	1951	1945
Leader's seat	Dedigama	Attanagalla	Ruwanwella
Last election	42 Seats, 39.81%	New Party	10 Seats, 10.81%
Seats won	54	9	9
Seat change	12		1
Popular vote	1,026,005	361,250	305,133
Percentage	44.08%	15.52%	13.11%

Prime Minister before election

Dudley Senanayake
United National Party

Prime Minister-designate

Dudley Senanayake
United National Party

General elections were held in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1952.

Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake died in March 1952, and was succeeded by his son, Dudley. The national wave of mourning for Ceylon's first prime minister greatly boosted the UNP's fortunes.

The 1952 election was the first contested by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which had broken away from the UNP on a platform of Sinhala nationalism, and the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (Federal Party), which split from the All Ceylon Tamil Congress over joining the UNP government.

Because the estate Tamils had been stripped of their citizenship by the Senanayake government, the Ceylon Indian Congress, which most of them had supported, was eliminated from Parliament and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party lost seats. The UNP won a majority, mainly at the cost of the CIC and the LSSP.

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