The Uttara Lanka Sabhagaya ( Sinhala: උත්‍ත‍ර ලංකා සභාගය,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

: உத்தர லங்கா சபாகய) or Supreme Lanka Coalition was a

political alliance A parliamentary group, parliamentary caucus or political group is a group consisting of members of different political parties or independent politicians with similar ideologies. Some parliamentary systems allow smaller political parties, who a ...

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, ...

formed in 2022. The coalition was made up of seven Sri Lankan

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

and

nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

parties who were formerly part of the SLPP-led

Sri Lanka People's Freedom Alliance The Sri Lanka People's Freedom Alliance (Abbreviation, abbreviated SLPFA; ; ) was a political alliance led by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna formed in 2019. Initially, the alliance consisted of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the Sri Lan ...

, before defecting to the opposition amidst the 2022 economic crisis and

political crisis A cabinet crisis, government crisis or political crisis refers to a situation where an incumbent government is unable to form or function, is toppled through an uprising, or collapses. Political crises may correspond with, cause or be caused by an ...

. The first conference of the alliance was held on 4 September 2022. Leader of the

National Freedom Front The Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (JNP) or National Freedom Front (NFF) is a political party in Sri Lanka which was formed by ten JVP parliamentarians led by Wimal Weerawansa, as a breakaway group of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The NFF comm ...

(NFF) and former cabinet minister

Wimal Weerawansa Weerasangilige Wimal Weerawansa (, ) (born 7 March 1970) is a Sri Lankan politician, Member of Parliament and current leader of the National Freedom Front (NFF). Weerawansa has served many cabinet positions, including Minister of Industries from ...

was the party chairman.

History

On 31 October 2019, seventeen parties including the SLPP and

SLFP The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP; ; ) is a centre-left political party in Sri Lanka. Founded by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in 1951, the party was one of Sri Lanka's two main parties from the 1950s to the 2010s, serving as the main rival of the ce ...

signed an agreement at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute in

Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...

to form the

, a political alliance led by former president

Mahinda Rajapaksa Mahinda Rajapaksa (; ; born Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa; 18 November 1945) is a Sri Lankan politician. He served as the sixth President of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015; the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 2004 to 2005, 2018, and 2019 to 2022; the ...

. The alliance supported Rajapaksa's younger brother and SLPP candidate

Gotabaya Rajapaksa Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, (; ; born 20 June 1949) was a Sri Lankan politician and military officer who served as the eighth President of Sri Lanka from 18 November 2019 until his Resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, resignation on 14 July 202 ...

in the 2019 presidential election, who later won the election to become

President of Sri Lanka The president of Sri Lanka ( ''Śrī Laṅkā Janādhipati''; ''Ilaṇkai janātipati'') is the head of state and head of government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The president is the chief executive of the union governm ...

, and Mahinda Rajapaksa was installed as

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 ...

. The alliance then went on to contest in the

2020 Sri Lankan parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Sri Lanka on 5 August 2020 to elect 225 members to Sri Lanka's 16th Parliament. 16,263,885 people were eligible to vote in the election, 31.95% of whom were young voters. The incumbent Sri Lanka People's ...

s, claiming a landslide victory and winning 145 seats. Between 2021 and 2022, however, the Rajapaksa government was beginning to lose much of its popularity. The ongoing

economic crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and ma ...

was only getting worse due to poor mismanagement by the government. By 2021, the foreign debt of Sri Lanka had risen to 101% of the nation's GDP. The government was also becoming highly

nepotistic Nepotism is the act of granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives in an occupation or field. These fields can include business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, religion or health care. In concept it is similar to cr ...

, with

Rajapaksa family The Rajapaksa family () is a Sri Lankan family that is prominent in politics. It was one of Sri Lanka's most powerful families during Mahinda Rajapaksa's presidency, when many members of the family occupied senior positions in the Sri Lankan s ...

brothers

Basil Rajapaksa Basil Rajapaksa (born 27 April 1951) is a Sri Lankan-American politician. He is a former Minister of Finance and Member of Parliament for the national list. He was also a member of the Sri Lankan Parliament from 2007 to 2015. During the peri ...

finance minister A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfoli ...

and Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister, and several more members of the Rajapaksa family holding prominent positions in the government. On 5 April 2022, amidst

increasing In mathematics, a monotonic function (or monotone function) is a function between ordered sets that preserves or reverses the given order. This concept first arose in calculus, and was later generalized to the more abstract setting of orde ...

discontent with the Rajapaksa government, 16 MPs formerly aligned with the SLFPA government chose to remain independent in the parliament, along with several other key allies of the SLPP. 15 of these MPs would go on to form the Supreme Lanka Coalition. On 4 September 2022, the group of 7 independent leftist political parties launched their new political alliance, the "Supreme Lanka Coalition", and the first general conference for the alliance was held on the same day. The coalition was launched only a few days after 13 SLPP MPs left the government and crossed over to the opposition as independent MPs, including SLPP chairman

G. L. Peiris Gamini Lakshman Peiris (Sinhala language, Sinhala: ගාමීණි ලක්ෂ්මණ් පීරිස්, Tamil language, Tamil: காமினி லக்ஷ்மன் பீரிஸ்) (born 13 August 1946) is a Sri Lankan poli ...

and SLPP MP Dullas Alahapperuma, who unsuccessfully challenged then-acting president

Ranil Wickremesinghe 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 ...

to complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapkasa's term in the

2022 Sri Lankan presidential election Indirect presidential elections were held in Sri Lanka on 20 July 2022 following the resignation of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa on 14 July. The president of Sri Lanka was elected by the Parliament in a secret ballot to decide who would complet ...

. The Supreme Lanka Coalition has considered the possibility of working with Alahapperuma. The parties of the Supreme Lanka Coalition included: *

Democratic Left Front The Democratic Left Front was formed as a non-sectarian and non-authoritarian anti-capitalist front in South Africa. It was formed from the ''Conference for a Democratic Left'' launched in 2008, at an event held in Johannesburg in January 2011. It ...

Lanka Sama Samaja Party The Lanka Sama Samaja Party, often abbreviated as LSSP ( literally: Lanka Equal Society Party, Sinhala: ලංකා සම සමාජ පක්ෂය, Tamil: லங்கா சமசமாஜக் கட்சி), is a major Trotskyist po ...

Communist Party of Sri Lanka The Communist Party of Sri Lanka (; ) is a communist party in Sri Lanka. In the 2004 Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2004 legislative election, the party was part of the United People's Freedom Alliance that won 45.6% of the popular vote and ...

* Piwithuru Hela Urumaya * Vijaya Dharani National Council * Yuthukama National Organization *

Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya The Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya (SLMP; Sri Lanka People's Party) is a political party in Sri Lanka, founded in 1984 by Vijaya Kumaranatunga. History 1980s Vijaya Kumaranatunga founded the party in 1984 and led it until his assassination in 19 ...

References

{{Sri Lankan political parties Jathika Nidahas Peramuna Lanka Sama Samaja Party Communist Party of Sri Lanka Democratic People's Front 2022 establishments in Sri Lanka Political parties established in 2022 Defunct political party alliances in Sri Lanka Sinhalese nationalist parties