The UNP under Dissanayake

Almost immediately after the election, Gamini Dissanayake announced that he intended to challenge Wickremesinghe for the post of leader of the opposition. The announcement came as a shock. Though throughout the campaign Dissanayake had suggested that he was the more popular candidate and could restore to the UNP the dominance it had squandered, the results did not quite prove his point. Given his strong showing in Colombo, and also the public acclaim he had received for stepping down, Wickremesinghe had not thought himself open to challenge.

It was true that the only Districts the UNP had won were those in the hills, which Dissanayake suggested constituted his own fiefdom. However the UNP did much better percentage wise in Colombo than it had done in the Provincial Council elections, and Wickremesinghe got nearly 300,000 preference votes, 100,000 more than Dissanayake, and slightly more too in percentage terms.

Despite this it seemed as though Dissanayake's challenge had the blessing of the party hierarchy. One reason for this may have been Wickremesinghe's refusing to cling to power after the election, which could well have damaged him in the eyes of a party unable to conceive of losing office. Wickremesinghe's supporters claimed that even Jayewardene was backing Dissanayake, on the grounds that, whereas Wickremesinghe would be content to spend the next few years in the opposition, Dissanayake would do his utmost to topple the government which had a narrow majority.