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1947 Ceylonese parliamentary election

First Ceylonese Parliamentary elections (1947)

Field	Value
election_name	1947 Ceylonese parliamentary election
country	British Ceylon
type	parliamentary
ongoing	no
outgoing_members	2nd State Council of Ceylon
next_election	1952 Ceylonese parliamentary election
next_year	1952
elected_members	1st Parliament of Ceylon
seats_for_election	95 seats in the House of Representatives of Ceylon
48 seats were needed for a majority
election_date	23 August–20 September 1947
turnout	61.3%
image1	Official Photographic Portrait of Don Stephen Senanayaka (1884-1952).jpg
leader1	D. S. Senanayake
leader_since1	1946
party1	United National Party
leaders_seat1	Mirigama
seats1	42
popular_vote1	751,432
percentage1	39.81%
image2
leader2	N. M. Perera
leader_since2	1945
party2	Lanka Sama Samaja Party
leaders_seat2	Ruwanwella
seats2	10
popular_vote2	204,020
percentage2	10.81%
title	Prime Minister
posttitle	Prime Minister after election
before_election	Position established
after_election	D. S. Senanayake
after_party	United National Party

48 seats were needed for a majority

Parliamentary elections were held in Ceylon between 23 August and 20 September 1947. They were the first elections overseen and administered by the newly formed Department of Parliamentary Elections.

Background

This is considered the first national election held in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon). Although it took place before independence was actually granted, it was the first election under the Soulbury Constitution.

Some of the major figures who had led the independence struggle were found in the right-wing United National Party led by D.S. Senanayake. In opposition were the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party and Bolshevik Leninist Party of India, the Communist Party of Ceylon, the Ceylon Indian Congress and an array of independents.

Results

Senanayake's UNP fell short of a majority, but was able to form a government in coalition with the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, which had taken most of the seats in the Tamil-majority regions of the island.

Sri Lanka obtained full independence as a dominion in 1948. The British nevertheless retained military bases in the country and English remained as the official language along with much of the administrative system put in place by the British along with British officials.

Notes

References

(3 Oct 2015). "Elections Department in the limelight". ft.lk.
[[Dieter Nohlen]], Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) ''Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I'', pp709–722 {{ISBN. 0-19-924958-X

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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