Founding In November 2016, the OSLFF relaunched itself as the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, a political front for the
Joint Opposition, and appointed
G. L. Peiris, the country's former
minister of foreign affairs and Rajapaksa ally, as its chairman. Attorney
Sagara Kariyawasam, a former organiser of the
Sri Lanka Freedom Party and attorney for former president Rajapaksa and his brother, former defence secretary
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was appointed as the party secretary. The flower bud remained as the symbol of the party.
Basil Rajapaksa, another brother of Rajapaksa, joined the SLPP shortly after it was launched.
Electoral successes In the
2018 Sri Lankan local elections, in a surprise result, the SLPP won a plurality of votes, winning 40.47% of all votes and securing the most councilors and local authorities; the party won 239
local government bodies including Municipals Councils, Urban Councils, and Pradeshiya Sabhas. In the
2019 Sri Lankan presidential election, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa ran as the SLPP candidate and was backed by the SLFP. Rajapaksa won the election with 52.25% of the vote and was sworn in as the new
president of Sri Lanka. In the
2020 Sri Lankan parliamentary election, the SLPP-led
Sri Lanka People's Freedom Alliance won a landslide victory and a clear majority in the parliament, winning 145 seats in Parliament. Five members of the Rajapaksa family won seats in the parliament, and former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as the new
prime minister of Sri Lanka.
Economic crisis The Rajapaksa administration introduced massive tax cuts in late 2019, which lead to a drop in government revenue that was soon compounded with the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the island nation losing its lucrative US$3 billion tourism industry that put 200,000 out of work in 2020 and most of 2021. Although the export sector picked up by 2021 and tourism started picking up, it appeared that Sri Lanka was facing its most severe
economic crisis since its independence in 1948 due to the loss of revenue from tax cuts, rampant money printing and unsustainable borrowings. By end of 2021, Sri Lanka was facing a
debt crisis with a possibility of
sovereign default. According to a poll conducted by
Verité Research in March 2022, the government's approval rating had fallen to just 10% as a result of the crisis. Following severe shortages of fuel, the state-owned
Ceylon Electricity Board was forced to implement 10–13 hour power cuts across the island in late March. The SLPP government began to grow increasingly unpopular. This triggered the
2022 Sri Lankan protests, which demanded the resignation of
Gotabaya Rajapaksa and other key officials from the Rajapaksa family. On 3 April, several ministers in the
second Gotabaya Rajapaksa cabinet submitted their resignations. This included three ministers from the Rajapaksa family:
Chamal Rajapaksa,
Basil Rajapaksa, and
Namal Rajapaksa. The president was to announce the new cabinet the following day. On 18 April, Rajapaksa appointed 17 new cabinet members, selected among his party members. This move was seen as a sign of Rajapaksa's lack of willingness to listen and adhere to the protesters' demands. On 9 May, Mahinda Rajapaksa tendered his resignation as prime minister to the president. Rajapaksa was heavily criticised by netizens and the public for resigning after instigating violence against peaceful protests.
Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the new prime minister on 12 May. Eventually, protests peaked on 9 July, after large numbers of protesters gathered at Chatham Street, near the
President's House, Colombo, demanding his immediate resignation. Protesters also broke into the
Presidential Secretariat and
Temple Trees, the prime minister's official residence, and gathered around the private residence at
115 Fifth Lane of Wickremesinghe.
Speaker of the parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena issued a statement that night that Rajapaksa would resign from office on 13 July. Political parties including the country's
opposition agreed to form an all-party interim government after the president's resignation. Wickremesinghe also announced that he would be willing to resign as prime minister, saying that he would do so once a new government was formed.
Self-exile and resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa On the morning of 13 July,
Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka and appointed Wickremesinghe as acting president in his absence. Rajapaksa emailed a letter of resignation to the speaker of the parliament on 14 July the next day, thus marking the end of Rajapaksa's presidency. The news of his resignation was celebrated by the public mainly at
Galle Face and also in the other parts of Colombo. On 15 July, parliamentary speaker
Mahinda Yapa Abewardhana announced the official resignation of Rajapaksa. Wickremesinghe was officially sworn in as the acting president, and was later elected in the
2022 Sri Lankan presidential election by the Parliament of Sri Lanka to complete the remainder of Rajapaksa's term. During the 2022 Sri Lankan presidential election,
Dinesh Gunawardena temporarily succeeded Mahinda Rajapaksa as the
de facto leader of the SLPP. Gunawardena would later become Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on 22 July 2022. On 15 December 2023, the National Convention of the SLPP was held, in which Mahinda Rajapaksa was reappointed as the party leader.
2024 presidential election In 2024, there was much speculation whether the SLPP would field its own candidate or endorse incumbent president
Ranil Wickremesinghe at the
2024 presidential election. In late July 2024, the SLPP announced that it would not endorse Wickremesinghe in the election. On 7 August 2024, the SLPP announced
Namal Rajapaksa, son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, as its candidate in the 2024 presidential election. He was the youngest candidate in the election. Rajapaksa was eliminated after the first vote count, placing 4th behind
Anura Kumara Dissanayake,
Sajith Premadasa and
Ranil Wickremesinghe and winning only 2.57% of the popular vote.
2024 parliamentary election In the
2024 parliamentary election, the SLPP, which had previously been the largest party in parliament, collapsed to just 3 seats, winning only 3.14% of the popular vote and becoming the 5th largest party in parliament. == Ideology ==