Political Parties
The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is one of the major political parties in Sri Lanka. It was founded by Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike in 1951 and, since then, has been one of the two largest parties in the Sri Lankan political arena. It first came to power in 1956 and since then has been the predominant party in government on a number of occasions.
After independence the SLFP represented a form of non-revolutionary socialism and a policy of non-alignment with strong ties to socialist countries.
At the last legislative elections, held on 2 April 2004, the party was the leading party in the United People's Freedom Alliance that won 45.6% of the popular vote and 105 out of 225 seats.
After the elections the party became the predominant party in government with Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister.
Following the 17 November presidential elections, the SLFP candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected President of Sri Lanka - winning 50.3% of the votes cast.
