(2 of 2)
For three days following the election, both sides labored behind the scenes to form alliances with the smaller parties, particularly with the 14-seat Federal Party, which represents the Tamil-speaking minority who work the island's tea plantations. Thousands of leftists swarmed in the road outside Temple Trees, the Prime Minister's official residence, shouting, "Victory!" and "Don't resign!" At the insistence of her Marxist Cabinet ministers, the buxom Prime Minister stoutly clung to power, even after Governor General William Gopallawa asked her to quit. But at last she caved in, and victory went to Dudley Senanayake after midnight of the third day. Wreathed in smiles, he called on the Governor General, bearing a letter of endorsement from the Federal Party leadership that enabled him to form a government.
Aid Again? Ceylon's new chief is a Cambridge graduate whose hobbies are photography and growing orchids. He has twice served as Prime Minister, and said he would follow a "truly nonaligned" foreign policy which, observers thought, would lean toward the West. At home, Senanayake will probably move slowly in denationalizing industry, but he does hope to compensate U.S. and British oil companies whose facilities were expropriated in 1962.
The settlement of the oil dispute should bring a restoration of U.S. economic aid to Ceylon, which was cut off in 1963, and help stabilize the island's shaky economy. Though widely popular, Senanayake lacks political cunning and physical toughness. These qualities, however, are found in his deputy leader of the U.N.P., J. R. Jayewardene, who has been named Minister of State and No. 2 man in the Cabinet. As for imperious Madame Bandaranaike, she is now free to follow her own prescription and become a homebody. When she was Prime Minister she once snapped to a critic of her government, "I don't have to listen to anyone's complaints. I can always quit this and go home to take care of my children."