Sri Lankan parliamentary election, March 1960

4th Ceylonese parliamentary election

← 1956 19 March 1960 1960 (July) →
151 seats to the House of Representatives of Ceylon 76 seats were needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader Dudley Senanayake C. P. de Silva Party United National Party Sri Lanka Freedom Party Leader since 1957 1960 Leader's seat Dedigama Minneriya Last election 8 Seats, 27.91% 51 Seats, 39.52% Seats won 50 46 Seat change 42 5 Popular vote 909,043 647,175 Percentage 29.89% 21.28%
Prime Minister before election Wijeyananda Dahanayake Sri Lanka Freedom Party Prime Minister-designate Dudley Senanayake United National Party

Wijeyananda Dahanayake
Sri Lanka Freedom Party

Dudley Senanayake
United National Party

General elections were held in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 19 March 1960.

By 1960, Ceylon's governing Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) coalition was falling apart. The Marxist parties that were junior partners of the coalition had broken with the dominant Sri Lanka Freedom Party over the issue of paddy lands. The Marxist Viplavakari Lanka Sama Samaja Party formed a new party that took the name MEP. The SLFP itself had been torn by an internal power struggle since the death of its leader, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the previous year.

Both the United National Party and the SLFP campaigned on a strongly anti-Tamil line, promising to repatriate the estate Tamils to India, and implement the Sinhala Only Act.

Dudley Senanayake and the UNP obtained a plurality of seats, but without a majority could not form a stable government. This led to the July 1960 elections.

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