July 1960 Ceylonese parliamentary election

← March 1960 20 July 1960 1965 →
151 seats in theHouse of Representatives of Ceylon 76 seats were needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader Sirimavo Bandaranaike Dudley Senanayake Party SLFP UNP Leader since 1960 1957 Leader's seat n/a Dedigama Last election 21.28%, 46 seats 29.89%, 50 seats Seats won 75 30 Seat change 29 20 Popular vote 1,022,171 1,144,166 Percentage 33.22% 37.19% Swing 11.94pp 7.30pp
Prime Minister before election Dudley Senanayake UNP Prime Minister-designate Sirimavo Bandaranaike SLFP

Snap parliamentary elections were held inCeylon in July 1960.

TheMarch 1960 election had left neither of Ceylon's two major parties with a majority, so another election was inevitable.

TheSri Lanka Freedom Party, which had been in disarray since the murder of its leaderS.W.R.D. Bandaranaike the previous year, settled on his widow,Sirimavo, as its new leader. She pledged to continue her husband's policies, notably theSinhala Only Act, and to proceed with repatriation of theestate Tamils toIndia. However, she promised to reach a compromise with theFederal Party.

TheUnited National Party, led byDudley Senanayake, refused to compromise with the Federal Party. It also differed with the SLFP over economic policy. The SLFP called for asocialist program ofnationalization of both private enterprises and religious schools; the UNP preferred to leave both in private hands.

The SLFP obtained a bare majority, despite getting a lower share of the popular vote than the UNP, and Mrs. Bandaranaike becameprime minister. This was the first time in history a woman led her party to victory in a general election and thus becoming prime minister.

• "Result of Parliamentary General Election 1960-07-20"(PDF). Department of Elections, Sri Lanka. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2015-09-24.
• "1960 July General Election Results". LankaNewspapers.com. Archived fromthe original on 2012-03-10.
• "Table 35 Parliament Election (1960 July)". Sri Lanka Statistics. 10 February 2009.
• Rajasingham, K. T. (1 December 2001)."Chapter 17: Assassination of Bandaranaike".Sri Lanka: The Untold Story. Asia Times. Archived from the original on 20 December 2001.
• Rajasingham, K. T. (8 December 2001)."Chapter 18: Srimavo - weeping arrogance".Sri Lanka: The Untold Story. Asia Times. Archived from the original on 17 December 2001.
• DeVotta, Neil (2004).Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford University Press. p. 123.ISBN 9780804749244.

• July 1960 Ceylonese parliamentary election
• 1960 elections in Ceylon
• 1960 in Ceylon
• July 1960 in Asia
• Parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka

• Articles with short description
• Short description with empty Wikidata description
• CS1: unfit URL
• Election and referendum articles with incomplete results