During the 2020 Parliamentary elections, the CPSL put forward two candidates, Mahesh Almedia in Colombo and Weerasumana Weerasinghe in Matara, under the SLPP's Pohottuwa symbol. Dr G. Weerasinghe was nominated for the party's National List. Weerasumana was the only candidate to successfully enter Parliament with 77,968 preferential votes. Gunasekera stepped down as General Secretary of the CPSL on 30 August 2020. Dr G. Weerasinghe was unanimously elected as the new General Secretary by the Central Committee. Party organization The youth wing of CPSL is the Communist Youth Federation. CYF is a member organization of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. Allegations The CPSL and other Leftist parties were framed by the J R Jayawardane government for instigating 1983 Black July pogroms against the Tamil people. The party was banned and leaders including D.E.W. Gunasekera were imprisoned for over a year. The ban was lifted due to the lack of evidence for the charges and intervention from the Soviet embassy. The ban on the JVP and NSSP stayed the same. Publications Aththa (Truth) is the CPSL's flagship Sinhala newspaper, which was renowned for its high standard of journalism, progressive editorials and Sinhala prose. The English organ of the CPSL was the Forward weekly. Electoral history See also Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist) Communist Party of Sri Lanka (Marxist-Leninist) New-Democratic Marxist-Leninist Party References External links Gift from CPSL to the German Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1976 1943 establishments in Ceylon Ceylon in World War II Anti-imperialist organizations Communist parties in Sri Lanka Political parties established in 1943 United People's Freedom Alliance Left-wing parties in Sri Lanka International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties