Ranasinghe Premadasa of the UNP wins the presidential election.
Quotation
“Despite our reservations about Premadasa… he was the most appropriate choice for succeeding Jayewardene… Whatever his political persona and his limitations, he had a mass base and he was immensely popular with the rural population of Sri Lanka,” JN Dixit, former Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Assignment Colombo, 1998.
“The Ravaya identified yet another factor for the defeat of the SLFP—caste: “The depressed castes amount to 28.8% of the total populace of the country and 40.44% of the Sinhalese. However they have been prevented from obtaining parliamentary representation that is proportionate to these large numbers. The Govigama caste which makes up 36% of the total population of Sri Lanka occupy 58.5% of the parliamentary seats; Karawa, Salagama and Durawa castes which make up 6.4% of the populace have 14% of the parliamentary seats. The depressed castes amount to 28.8% of the population but have only 5.9% of the parliamentary seats. The SLFP has been unable to demonstrate that it is interested in correcting this injustice. Even in the parliamentary electorates with a majority of depressed caste voters the SLFP has shown a propensity to appoint Govigama organisers—causing these voters to lose faith in the SLFP. For example in 6 out of the 8 electorates in the Kegalle district (with the exception of the electorates of Dedigama and Mawanella) the majority of the voters come from non-Govigama castes. Still most of the organisers representing these electorates are members of the Govigama caste. If at the Presidential election the competition was between two candidates from ‘Walawwas’ this factor would not have been of much pertinence. But the fact that this time the competition was not between two feudals but a feudal and a non-feudal caused a change. This factor too played a role in the SLFP’s defeat in its traditional bastions such as the districts of Ratnapura, Kegalle and Kandy.”Insurrectionary Violence in Sri Lanka: The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Insurgencies of 1971 and 1987-1989, Tisaranee Gunasekara, Ethnic Studies Report, ICES, Vol. XVII, No. 1, January 1999.
Related events
29 July 1987
18 September 1989
February 1990
1 May 1993
