The Democratic People's Alliance of Opposition Parties

Mrs. Bandaranaike was Premadasa's chief opponent. Finally nominated by the SLFP under its own symbol, she ran as the common candidate of five parties which had come together under the title of the Democratic People's Alliance (DPA) on a manifesto prepared by them and three others, including the JVP and the SLMC.

The grouping had begun in February through an initiative of the MEP, led now by Dinesh Gunawardena, who had entered parliament in the by-elections of 1983, after an electoral alliance with the SLFP. It was thought he owed his victory to the refusal of his UNP opponent to allow the fraud and thuggery rampant elsewhere; that opponent was now the Secretary of the ELJP, set up by Rukman Senanayake.

Gunawardena had called together leaders of opposition political parties to take a stand on the violations of human rights and the disappearances of persons in the south, following the government's offensive against terrorism there. The same strategy that had led to disaster in the north was being applied, with similar results in terms of increasing militancy. Whereas the Tamil Liberation groups had a well established information network that kept the issue alive internationally, abuses in the south received little publicity, and only roused indignation when they were as gross as in the case of Liyanarachchi. The parties that came together on Gunawardena's initiative could do little except issue statements, but they decided to meet regularly to discuss issues of common interest.