77 - Sri Lanka Muslim Congress' Rise to Power

Out of the total population of Sri Lanka, the Muslim community constitutes about 8%, while the Buddhist majority makes up 69,1%. Still, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, a Muslim political party, has been a significant player in the Sri Lankan political arena since the early 1990s. This article explores how they managed to gain support as quickly as they did, from the early 1980s to the present, and how they were able to become one of the most important minority political parties in the country. In order to understand the empirical data presented here, the reader first needs a brief introduction to the most important recent events in the country’s Muslim community.