SLFP leader
Sirimavo Bandaranaike had come to the conclusion that her party's best hope of power was forming a permanent alliance with Ceylon's
Marxist parties. She assembled the SLFP, the Trotskyist
LSSP, and the
Communists into the
United Front coalition. The UF's platform was called the
Common Programme; it featured extensive
nationalization, a
non-aligned foreign policy, expanded social programmes, and replacement of the British-imposed,
monarchical Soulbury constitution with a
republican constitution. The
UNP government of
Dudley Senanayake had not made much headway with Ceylon's twin problems of
inflation and
unemployment, nor had it attempted solving the linked problems of
feudal property relations and adverse
terms of trade by
agrarian reform and
industrialisation. The UNP had become widely perceived as a party of the rich, out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. The UF's
socialist platform had much greater appeal. ==Results==