Up-Country People's Front

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The Up-Country People's Front ( UCPF , Tamil மலையக மக்கள் முன்னணி , Sinhalese කඳුරට ජනතා පෙරමුණ , “People's Front of the People's Inland People”) is a small political party in Sri Lanka . It draws its following mainly from the Tamil plantation workers in the mountains of Sri Lanka.

history

The party was founded in 1994 by Periyasamy Chandrasekaran . The party was intended to represent the interests of the Bergland Tamils ​​(the "Indian" Tamils ) and was founded, at least in part, as an alternative to the traditional Ceylon Worker's Congress (CWC). The name was intended to indicate that the party wanted to specifically address the concerns of the Indian Tamils ​​inland and not the Sri Lankan Tamils living in the northern and eastern provinces on the coast .

Chandrasekaran was elected as a formally independent Tamil candidate in Sri Lanka's 1994 general election in the Nuwara Eliya constituency. He supported the government of the People's Alliance in the subsequent legislative period and also received a deputy ministerial office in the government. In 1999, Chandrasekaran and the UCPF changed political fronts and supported the United National Party (UNP) in the 2000 and 2001 elections . Chandrasekaran justified the change with the fact that the interests of the mountainous Tamils ​​were better off at the UNP. In the 2004 election , Chandrasekaran was re-elected in the Nuwara Eliya constituency and in 2006 moved to the camp of the UPFA- led government, which has been in office since 2004 . In the 2010 presidential election , the UCPF voted in favor of the UPFA candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa . In the 2015 presidential election, the UCPF party leadership called for the election of the UNP candidate, Maithripala Sirisena , which, however, was not undisputed within the party. Before the 2015 general election , the UCPF joined forces with two other small Tamil parties from inland Sri Lanka to form the Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA). The TPA supported the UNP in the election.

The party has received at least some verbal support from government officials in neighboring Tamil Nadu in India.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Various abbreviations are used for the party name - UPF, UCPF etc.
  2. ↑ PARLIAMENTARY GENERAL ELECTION - 1994. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Department of Elections, archived from the original on October 6, 2010 ; accessed on August 26, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.slelections.gov.lk
  3. ↑ Chris Kamalendran: Deputy Minister, TELO, EPRLF for UNP; EPDP for; TULF neutral: Tamil parties split over candidates. The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka), December 5, 1999, accessed August 28, 2015 .
  4. ^ UPF leader Chandrasekaran dies of heart attack. TamilNet, January 1, 2010, accessed August 28, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Upcountry people's front divides. Hiru News, December 22, 2014, accessed August 28, 2015 .
  6. ^ Up-country political parties form Tamil Progressive Alliance. DailyFT, July 4, 2015, accessed August 28, 2015 .
  7. ↑ TamilNadu parties ready to lend support to Tamil struggle- Ramdoss. TamilNet, January 7, 2006, accessed August 28, 2015 .