1952 Ceylonese parliamentary election

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95 seats in theHouse of Representatives of Ceylon 48 seats were needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   LSSP Leader Dudley Senanayake S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike N. M. Perera Party UNP SLFP LSSP Leader since 1952 1951 1945 Leader's seat Dedigama Attanagalla Ruwanwella Last election 39.81%, 42 seats Did not exist 10.81%, 10 seats Seats won 54 9 9 Seat change 12 New party 1 Popular vote 1,026,005 361,250 305,133 Percentage 44.08% 15.52% 13.11% Swing 4.27pp New party 2.30pp
Prime Minister before election Dudley Senanayake UNP Prime Minister after election Dudley Senanayake UNP

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Parliamentary elections were held inCeylon in 1952. It is notable for being the second and final election overseen and administered by theDepartment of Parliamentary Elections before its merger in 1955.^[1]

Prime MinisterD.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 theSri Lanka Freedom Party, which had broken away from the UNP on a platform ofSinhalanationalism, and theIllankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (Federal Party), which split from theAll Ceylon Tamil Congress over joining the UNP government.

Because the estate Tamils had been stripped of their citizenship by the Senanayake government, theCeylon Indian Congress, which most of them had supported, was eliminated fromParliament and theLanka Sama Samaja Party lost seats. The UNP won a majority, mainly at the cost of the CIC and the LSSP.^{[citation needed]}

• "Result of Parliamentary General Election 1952"(PDF). Department of Elections, Sri Lanka. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 24 September 2015.
• "1952 General Election Results". LankaNewspapers.com. Archived fromthe original on 10 March 2012.
• "Table 32 Parliament Election (1952)". Sri Lanka Statistics. 10 February 2009. Archived fromthe original on 9 October 2011. Retrieved3 October 2010.
• Rajasingham, K. T. (10 November 2001)."Chapter 14: Post-colonial realignment of political forces".Asia Times. Sri Lanka: The Untold Story. Archived from the original on 3 January 2002.

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