United People's Freedom Alliance

The United People's Freedom Alliance (abbreviated UPFA; Eksath Janathā Nidahas Sandānaya; ) was a political alliance in Sri Lanka founded by former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2004 and dissolved by former Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena in 2019. History The United People's Freedom Alliance was born out of a memorandum of understanding signed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in 2004. The agreement was the result of a year's negotiations between the two parties, and broadly outlined common goals in the areas of the economy, ethnic harmony, democracy, culture and foreign policy, areas in which the two parties shared common disagreements with the ruling UNP-led United National Front, which was in power at the time. The agreement did not go into specifics on how differences between the two parties would be resolved, particularly in the area of their differing visions of the solution to the country's ethnic problem. Fundamentally, the memorandum was used as a coalition declaration for the upcoming parliamentary elections, and was a revisiting of the unsuccessful coalition attempt before the 2001 parliamentary elections. The coalition was, in effect, an attempt to oust the ruling UNP based on negative public opinion on its handling of the Sri Lankan Civil War, both in terms of its approach to negotiating with the LTTE and a perceived free hand given to Western interference in the country's democracy through the Norwegian-led peace process. The name of the alliance is believed to have been heavily influenced by the JVP, who insisted it be named Eksath Janathā Nidahas Sandānaya (Sinhala: United People's Freedom Alliance) such that it preceded the Eksath Jāthika Pakshaya (Sinhala: United National Party) on the Sinhala ballot paper. The influence of the JVP (and later the Jathika Hela Urumaya) has been identified as one of the reasons for the nationalist leanings of the alliance. A collection of left-leaning political parties then entered the alliance at various dates after January 2004 with memorandums of understanding of their own. These parties included the Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya, Desha Vimukthi Janatha Pakshaya, Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, the National Congress Party, the Muslim National Unity Alliance, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party.