Democratic Party was a political party in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

led by former army chief

Sarath Fonseka Field Marshal Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka (born 18 December 1950) is a Sri Lankan retired army officer. He was the eighteenth Commander of the Sri Lankan Army from 2005 to 2009, and under his command the Sri Lankan Army ended the 26- ...

. It was registered by the election commission of Sri Lanka in March 2013.

2013 Provincial Council Elections

The Democratic Party contested for Provincial council elections held on 21 September 2013 for North, North Western & Central Provincial councils. They secured 3 & 2 seats of North western and Central Provincial councils obtaining 46,114 and 45,239 votes form respective provinces. They surprisingly emerged as third in both councils over JVP. However, they were unable to garner any support from North Provincial council where they obtained only 170 votes.

2014 Provincial Council Elections

Democratic Party contested for provincial council elections held on 29 March 2014 and secured 12 seats of two councils. In Southern council 75,532 votes obtaining 3 seats while in western province they got 203,767 votes obtaining 9 seats. Democratic party got defeated badly in the Uva Provisional council election held on 20 September 2014. They could garner only 6076 votes from whole province which was 0.89%. This was a biggest setback for the newly established party.

2015 Presidential election

The Democratic Party has declared its support for the opposition common candidate

Maithripala Sirisena Maithripala Yapa Sirisena (; ; born 3 September 1951) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the seventh president of Sri Lanka from 9 January 2015 to 18 November 2019. Sirisena is Sri Lanka's first president from the North Central Province, S ...

. With the decision taken some appointed members left the party including Jayantha Ketagoda (MP).

2015 Parliamentary election

Party leader field marshal Sarath Fonseka announced he would contest alone for

parliamentary election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...

scheduled on 17 August 2015. Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka contested from the Colombo district. Surprisingly DP faced a massive slide in the election in which they could garner only 28,587 votes across the country, resulting in no representation in the 8th parliament of Sri Lanka.

2016 United National Front

The party joined governing

United National Front for Good Governance The United National Front (UNF) (), later the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) ( ''Eksath Yahapalana Jathika Peramuna''; ), was a political alliance in Sri Lanka led by the United National Party. The UNF was the governing party ...

signing an MOU with

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Ranil Wickramasinghe Ranil Wickremesinghe (; ; born 24 March 1949) is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the ninth president of Sri Lanka from 2022 to 2024. He has also served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1993–1994, 2001–2004, 2015–2018, 2018-2019 a ...

on 3 February 2016. On 9 February

took oath as a member of parliament for the seat vacated by the death of M. K. A. D. S. Gunawardana giving the party a seat in the

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. On 30 July Sarath Fonseka obtained membership of United National Party and Democratic party was dissolved accordingly.

Electoral history

References

2013 establishments in Sri Lanka 2016 disestablishments in Sri Lanka Defunct political parties in Sri Lanka Political parties established in 2013 Political parties disestablished in 2016 {{SriLanka-party-stub