Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 1989

9th Sri Lankan parliamentary election

15 February 1989

All 225 seats to the Parliament of Sri Lanka 113 seats were needed for a majority Turnout 63.60%   First party Second party   Leader Ranasinghe Premadasa Sirimavo Bandaranaike Party United National Party Sri Lanka Freedom Party Leader since 1988 1960 Leader's seat n/a Gampaha District Last election 140 Seats, 50.92% 8 Seats, 29.72% Seats won 125 67 Seat change 15 59 Popular vote 2,837,961 1,780,599 Percentage 50.7% 31.8%

Winners of electoral districts. UNP in green and SLFP in blue.

Prime Minister before election Dingiri Banda Wijetunga United National Party Prime Minister-designate Dingiri Banda Wijetunga United National Party

Sri Lanka had not had a parliamentary election since 1977. The elections that should normally have been held by 1983 had been cancelled by the 1982 referendum.

President Ranasinghe Premadasa called the election for February 15.

Results

Summary

 Summary of the 1989 Sri Lankan parliamentary election^[1]

Alliances and parties		Votes	%	Seats
				District	National	Total
	United National Party Ceylon Workers' Congress United National Party	2,838,005	50.71%	110	15	125
	Sri Lanka Freedom Party	1,785,369	31.90%	58	9	67
	Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students[lower-alpha 1]	229,877	4.11%	12	1	13
	Tamil United Liberation Front Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization Tamil United Liberation Front	188,594	3.37%	9	1	10
	Sri Lanka Muslim Congress	202,016	3.61%	3	1	4
	United Socialist Alliance Communist Party of Sri Lanka Lanka Sama Samaja Party Nava Sama Samaja Party Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya	160,271	2.86%	2	1	3
	Mahajana Eksath Peramuna	91,128	1.63%	2	1	3
	United Lanka People's Party	67,723	1.21%	0	0	0
	Democratic People's Liberation Front People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam	18,502	0.33%	0	0	0
	All Ceylon Tamil Congress	7,610	0.14%	0	0	0
	Independents	7,373	0.13%	0	0	0
Valid Votes		5,596,468	100.00%	196	29	225
Rejected Votes		365,563
Total Polled		5,962,031
Registered Electors		9,374,164
Turnout		63.60%

Province

Electoral District

Elected members

Notes

1. EROS contested as an independent group in four districts (Batticaloa, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Vanni).

References

1. "Result of Parliamentary General Election 1989" (PDF). Department of Elections, Sri Lanka.

• "Result of Parliamentary General Election 1989" (PDF). Department of Elections, Sri Lanka.
• "Table 39 Parliament Election (1989)". Sri Lanka Statistics. 10 February 2009.
• "Sri Lanka Parliamentary Chamber: Parliament Elections Held in 1989". Inter-Parliamentary Union.
• Rajasingham, K. T. (27 April 2002). "Chapter 37: Talking peace". Sri Lanka: The Untold Story. Asia Times.