In the first general election contested by the TULF, the
1977 Sri Lankan parliamentary election, in which the
UNP won by a landslide, the TULF won 6.40% of the popular vote and 18 out of 168 seats in the
Sri Lankan parliament, including all 14 seats in the
Northern Province.
Votes and seats won by the TULF by electoral district The TULF became the official opposition as a result of the rout of the
SLFP. The TULF's success would lead to
riots in which hundreds of
Tamils were murdered by
Sinhalese mobs. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the TULF was frequently blamed by nationalist
Sinhalese politicians for acts of violence committed by
militant groups such as the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In fact, the TULF represented an older, more moderate generation of Tamils that felt independence could be achieved without violence, unlike the LTTE, who believed in armed conflict. In October 1983, all the TULF legislators, numbering sixteen at the time, forfeited their seats in Parliament for refusing to swear an oath unconditionally renouncing support for a separate state in accordance with the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka. During the 1980s, the LTTE began to see the TULF as a rival in its desire to be considered the sole representative of the Tamils of the north and east. Over the next two decades, the LTTE assassinated several TULF leaders, including
A. Amirthalingam and
Neelan Thiruchelvam. ==1989 Parliamentary General Election==