DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF SRI LANKA Official name: Sri Lanka Prajatantrika Samajavadi Janarajaya / llankai Jananayaka Socialisak Kutiyarasu (Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka) Location: South Asia International organisations: The Commonwealth of Nations, The Non-Aligned Movement, The United Nations, The World Trade Organisation Borders: None Coastline: Indian Ocean Land area: 65,610 Km2 Population: 19,500,000 Ethnicity: Sinhalese 74%, Tamil 18%, Arab 7%. There are small minorities of Europeans and part-Europeans (known as Burghers).

Languages: Sinhala and Tamil are the official languages. Sinhala is spoken by about 75% of the population. Tamil is spoken by about 18%, and other languages by 8%.
Religion: Buddhist 70%, Hindu 15%, Christian 8%, Moslem 7%
Form of government: Parliamentary democratic republic. Sri Lanka is divided into eight provinces.

Capital: Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte (a suburb of Colombo, which is the de facto capital). Constitution: The Constitution of Sri Lanka came into effect on 16 August 1978, but has been substantially amended since. A new Constitution is being prepared for submission to the people for approval. Head of state: The President, elected by direct universal suffrage for a six-year term. The Constitution gives the President substantial authority over the government. Head of government: The Prime Minister, appointed by the President. The Prime Minister is the leader of the largest party in the legislature and is accountable to it. Legislature: Sri Lanka has a unicameral legislature. The National Assembly has 225 members, elected for six-year terms. Of these, 196 are elected from multi-member constituencies and 29 by proportional representation. Electoral authority: The Sri Lanka Department of Elections administers national elections. Freedom House rating: Political Rights 3, Civil Liberties 4

Political history

The coastal areas of Ceylon (Lanka in Sinhala) were under Dutch control from the 17th century, although the Kingdom of Kandy in the interior of the island remained independent. The British seized the island from the Dutch in 1796, and in 1802 it became a Crown Colony. Kandy was annexed in 1815. The British enouraged the growth of tea planting and the importation of Tamils from southern India to work on the plantations.

A Ceylon National Congress was formed in 1919. In 1931 limited self-government was introduced, with a legislature elected by universal suffrage. In 1945 the British, eager to depart, granted full internal self-government, and in 1947 Ceylon became independent.

Don Stephen Senanayake

The history of independent Celyon (officially known as Sri Lanka since 1972) has been dominated by the issue of relations between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority. Ceylon's first Prime Minister, Don Stephen Senanayake, favoured conciliation between the two groups, but in 1956 a Sinhala nationalist government led by Solomon Bandaranaike came to power. The Bandaranaike family has dominated Sri Lankan politics ever since. Solomon's widow, Sirimavo, was twice Prime Minister, and his daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was Prime Minister and then President. The election of a conservative government led by Junius Jayawardene in 1977 marked a breakdown in communal relations which soon degenerated into civil war, with organisations such as the Tamil Tigers waging a prolonged guerilla war and a campaign of terrorism against the government in Colombo and the Sinhala majority. In 1993 President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.

In 1994 the Bandaranaikes returned to power at the head of a left-wing and nationalist coalition, with Chandrika as President and Sirimavo as Prime Minister. Their People's Alliance government was dominated by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, allied with the Communist Party of Sri Lanka and the semi-Trotskyist Sri Lanka Equal Society Party; once powerful parties now reduced to dependency on the SLFP.

But the Bandaranaikes' hardline policy against the Tamils failed once more, and in 2000 the United National Party, led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, returned to power on a policy of negotiation and reconciliation. Wickremesinghe's government faced opposition from President Kuamaratunga, who dismissed him in 2001, when the Alliance returned to power. An Alliance candidate, Mahinda Rajapakse, was elected President in 2005.

Extreme Sinhala nationalism is represented by the People's United Liberation Front or JVP (originally a Maoist grouping), while Tamil nationalism is represented by the People's United Liberation Front, the Tamil United Liberation Front and the more moderate Eelam People's Democratic Party.