In the early 1990s,
Lalith Athulathmudali was a prominent
United National Party politician and dissident of
president Ranasinghe Premadasa and a potential challenger to Premadasa for the UNP candidacy in the
upcoming presidential elections. He was removed from the UNP and formed his own political party, the
Democratic United National Front, alongside other UNP dissidents. Athulathmudali was controversially
assassinated on 23 April 1993, which was widely believed to have been orchestrated by Premadasa himself. Two years after his assassination, a split in the Democratic United National Front would lead to his widow,
Srimani Athulathmudali, establishing her own political party, the Democratic United National Lalith Front. In 2009, the party was renamed as the New Democratic Front (NDF).
2010 presidential election In 2010, General
Sarath Fonseka, a former
Chief of Defence Staff and former
Commander of the
Sri Lanka Army, was the NDF candidate in the
2010 presidential elections. He was contesting in the elections as the "joint opposition candidate", and was supported by the
United National Party (UNP) and the
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the two main opposition parties, among others. Fonseka was one of the two main candidates of the election, along with then-incumbent President
Mahinda Rajapaksa, however Fonseka lost the election to Rajapaksa by a significant margin.
2015 presidential election In December 2014, former
general-secretary of the
Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and presidential candidate
Maithripala Sirisena deposited his bond for the
2015 presidential elections, under the "symbol of the swan" of the National Democratic Front. Sirisena won the presidential election and was sworn in as the new
President of Sri Lanka on 9 January 2015 after defeating incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sirisena would also go on to replace Rajapaksa as the
Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.
2019 presidential election In 2019,
Sajith Premadasa, deputy leader of the UNP and son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa, was the NDF candidate in the
2019 presidential election. Premadasa lost the election to
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) candidate
Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
2024 parliamentary election In September 2024, following then-incumbent president
Ranil Wickremesinghe's loss in the
presidential elections, the NDF was relaunched as a political alliance of MPs and parties who supported Wickremesinghe's campaign. ==Member parties==