By Sanjeev Kumar Patro
Bhubaneswar: Day of defining moments for Sri Lanka today. Nearly two years after ‘the Struggle’ in 2022, the island country saw, what experts call, the most peaceful elections in country’s history on September 21. And as the vote counting was taken up on Sunday, the results show Anura Dissanayake far ahead in the race to become the country’s tenth president.
A leftist leader and president of Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, Anura Kumar Dissanayake has polled over 5.6 lakh votes, cornering over 42 percent of the popular votes. His closest rival has been United National Party leader Sajith Premadasa, who is son of former President Ranasingha Premadasa and the current Leader of opposition in Sri Lanka. Premadasa has secured over 4.4 lakh votes or 32% of first choice votes.
PREZ RACE
As per the Island country’s official poll agency, the Prez poll race has been a multi horse race. A total of 38 candidates have filed their nomination. The race to the top post saw as many as six candidates on the reckoning
- Anura Dissanayake (NPP)
- Sajith Premadasa (UNP)
- Sitting President Ranil Wickremesinghe (Independent candidate)
- Namal Rajapakse (SLPP) (son of former Prezs Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajpakse)
- Nuwan Bopage (People’s Struggle Alliance –PSA).
- Dilith Jayaweera (Mawbima Janatha Party –MJP)
The poll results announced today can be called as a three horse race, as the contest for the President was between three candidates – Anura Dissanayake, Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wikremesinghe (current president). Ranil Wikremesinghe secured over 17% of votes totalling to around 2.3lakh votes.
DIVISION WISE DIVIDE
The Sri Lankan Prez elections is not ‘first-past-the-post’ model, means one who win the largest number of votes will be declared the winner. Here the preferential voting ensures the president-elect secures 50 percent of valid votes.The voters can mark ‘Cross’ on a single candidate or list their preferences as 1, 2, 3 etc.
If no candidate wins an outright majority from the first-preference votes, candidate securing fewest first-choice votes is then eliminated. The votes from those eliminated ballots are then redistributed based on the second preferences. This process continues until one candidate surpasses 50%.
The total registered voters of the country were over 17 million, including 1 million first time voters. The turnout was over 78%. And valid votes count stood at around 98%. The country has 22 electoral districts with 160 polling divisions.
The poll results convey the following.
- Out of the160 polling divisions, Anura Dissanayake led in around 125.
- Out of the 22 districts, Anrura Dissanayake secured win in 12 districts
- Nearest Rival of UNP Sajith Premadasa won 8 districts or in over 35 polling divisions.
- Anura secured 67% votes in Capital Colombo.
- Sajith won with maximum vote share in Tamil dominated districts in Sri Lanka.
