The 1956 election and the adoption of the Sinhala Only Movement also marked the beginning of ethnic outbidding in Sri Lankan party politics. The Mahajana Eksah Peramuna (MEP, People’s United Front) coalition led by Bandaranaike won a landslide election, and soon after passed the Sinhala Only Act. What frightened the Tamil people was the fact that the Act, “paved the way for a quick assimilation into the majority Singhalese mainstream, and threatened the very survival of the Tamils as an ethnically and culturally distinct people.”[31] This fear would only be heightened by subsequent Sinhalese policies.