The Ceylon Workers' Congress, headed in 1988 by Suvumyamoorthy Thondaman, originally joined with other Tamil groups to form TULF, but withdrew from the party after the July 1977 general election, when Jayewardene offered Thondaman a post in the UNP cabinet. In the late 1980s, the Ceylon Workers' Congress, with one representative, Thondaman, in Parliament, continued to cooperate with the ruling party. This was politically feasible because its principal supporters, Indian Tamils located for the most part in the central part of the country, were unresponsive to the Sri Lankan Tamils' call for an independent state in the north. In December 1986, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, based in the Eastern Province, announced its determination to become a national political party.

Data as of October 1988