February 22, 1956 is a significant day in the political history of Sri Lanka. That was the day the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP – United People's Front) was formed under the leadership of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to fight the 1956 general election.

Bandaranaike who was Minister of Local Government & Health and Leader of the House in the 1947 D. S. Senanayake cabinet, had left the United National Party (UNP) in 1951 and formed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). It was a left-of-centre political party. The SLFP contested the 1952 general election putting forward 48 candidates and won nine seats – the identical number that the longstanding Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) secured after contesting 39 seats. However, the SLFP had secured more votes – 361,251 as against the LSSP tally of 305,133. Bandaranaike was elected Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives.

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike	Philip Gunawardena	W. Dahanayake	I. M. R. A. Iriyagolle

With the possibility of an early dissolution of Parliament (it could go on till June 1957), Bandaranaike set about to form an alliance of opposition parties to fight the next general election. Talks among several
parties were successful and by the time Parliament was dissolved on February 18, 1956, he was ready to form the new alliance.

Thus the MEP was formally announced four days after the dissolution of Parliament. There were four
signatories to the agreement signed on February 22. Three were leaders of parties – S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike (SLFP), Philip Gunawardena (Viplavakari Sama Samaja Party – VLSSP) and W. Dahanayake (Sinhala Bhasha Peramuna). I. M. R. A. Iriyagolle signed on behalf of the independents. A no contest pact was also reached with the LSSP and the Communist Party (CP).

The MEP selected the hand (used by the SLFP at the 1952 election) as its symbol and put forward
60 candidates with the no-contest pact partners fielding 30 (LSSP 21 & CP 9). The ruling UNP had
76 candidates.

The election was spread over three days and it became apparent on the first day itself that the MEP was going to win when the party won 27 seats out of 36 while the UNP had just eight seats, which turned out to be the only ones they won in the whole election. The MEP won 51 with LSSP gaining the second spot with 14. The Federal Party (leader was S. J. V. Chelvanayagam who had left the Tamil Congress to form the new party) won 10 seats.

Out of the 51 MEP members, 43 were from the SLFP. In forming the Cabinet of Ministers, Bandaranaike selected two from the VLSSP (leader Philip Gunawardena and P. H. William Silva) and leader of the Bhasha Peramunma,

W. Dahanayake to serve as ministers in charge of agriculture, industries and education respectively.
It did not take long to notice dissension between the right wing and left wing ministers and on May 18, 1959, the two VLSSP ministers resigned. Education Minister Dahanayake's party was not one that could create much of an impact.

Thus the government turned out to be a SLFP one. Meanwhile, a spate of strikes organized by the LSSP and CP crippled the economy. The crisis in the governing party continued until quite unexpectedly Prime Minister Bandaranaike was assassinated in September 1959. By this time, the MEP proper had
disintegrated and it was left for the SLFP to continue through the third Parliament.

After moving out of the government, Philip Gunawardena retained the name 'Mahajana Eksath Peramuna' for his own party. In 1963, he formed the United Left Front with the LSSP and CP but this did not last long.

By 1965, he had decided to support the UNP and was made Minister of Industries in the Dudley Senanayake government. After his death in 1972, one of his sons, Dinesh took over the MEP and continues to lead the party to this day. He has been supporting the SLFP governments and is presently Minister of Urban Development in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government.