Colombo: In a historic first, Sri Lanka’s presidential election on Sunday went into a second round of counting after no candidate secured over 50 per cent vote needed to be declared the winner.
The latest results showed Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party’s broader front National People’s Power (NPP) had won 39.52 per cent of the votes counted.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa of Samagi Jana Balawegaya is in second place with nearly 34.28 per cent of the total vote.
Notably, Sri Lanka follows the first-past-the-post system in which voters are allowed to choose three candidates, with the candidate securing at least 50 per cent or more of the overall vote declared the winner. If no candidate gets 50 per cent in the first round, there is a legal provision for a run-off between the two frontrunners.
Since 1982, all of Sri Lanka’s eight presidential elections have seen the winner emerge in the first round of counting. However, this year’s poll has been described as one of the closest as it comes in the aftermath of Sri Lanka going through one of its worst economic crises.
While early results showed Dissanayake out of the blocks quickly, his lead had since dwindled which could set the stage for a fascinating second round of counting.
As of the last update, Marxist-leaning leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake was leading the polls with 39.65 per cent of the vote. Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa is in second place with 34.09 per cent of the total vote.
The Sri Lanka Election Commission added that all the remaining candidates, including President Ranil Wickremesinghe, had been disqualified.
Dissanayake, the frontrunner to win the election, contested as a candidate for the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, which includes his Marxist-leaning Janatha Vimukthi Peremuna Party (JVP) that has traditionally backed stronger state intervention, lower taxes and more closed market economic policies.
NPP has proposed to break away from the cycle of corruption and mismanagement that has plagued the island nation for years.
As for his economic policies, Dissanayake has vowed not to scrap the country’s unpopular four-year $2.9 billion IMF (International Monetary Fund) bailout agreement but said he would renegotiate it.
“Our plan is to engage with the IMF and introduce certain amendments. We will not tear up the IMF programme. It is a binding document, but there is a provision to renegotiate,” party politburo member Bimal Ratnayake told the news agency AFP.
Notably, Dissanayake has pledged to reduce income taxes that were doubled by President Ranil Wickremesinghe and slash sales taxes on food and medicines.
