As the first prime minister, D.S. Senanayake, leader of the UNP, feared the strong possibilities of Marxist disruption of government and commenced the task of weakening the Marxist parties and their associate organizations. Thus the newly independent first cabinet introduced the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948, the Indian-Pakistani Citizenship act of 1949 and amended the parliamentary elections act. The requirements of "ten years of residence for married persons, and seven years for unmarried persons", stipulations in the 1949 act were in line with the legislation used by European nations at the time. It also allowed citizenship to “a person born in Ceylon prior to the date of the Act coming into force, of a father born in Ceylon”. However, this was in effect a continuation of the older, somewhat harsher "status quo" of the Indian workers in the 1930s, prior to the Donoughmore constitution, which called for only five years' residence.