Sunday 22 / September / 2024
Colombo: Sri Lanka's election commission said late on Sunday that Marxist-leading candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his party had won general elections with 42.31% of the votes cast on Saturday.
Sri Lanka authorities conducted a second round of counting for the first time in the country's history after top candidates failed to secure a majority solely from people's first-preference votes in the presidential race.
Dissanayake and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa had come out on top in the first round but neither won the mandatory 50% of first-preference votes necessary to be declared winner at the first count.
The election commission said on its website that Premdasa had come second and incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe finished a distant third.
How the voting panned out
It was already clear after the initial vote count, announced earlier on Sunday, that all remaining candidates other than Dissanayake and Premadasa had been eliminated from contention.
The Election Commission told reporters that Wickremesinghe, who took office at the height of Sri Lanka's 2022 economic collapse and imposed tough austerity policies, came a distant third with just 17%.
What happens now?
Wickremesinghe did not immediately concede. However, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said it appeared clear that Dissanayake had won.
"Though I heavily campaigned for President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the people of Sri Lanka have made their decision, and I fully respect their mandate for Anura Kumara Dissanayake," Sabry said on social media.
Meanwhile, Vijitha Herath, a delegate from Dissanayake's party, said they were confident of victory but urged supporters to stay patient as the count went on.
"The Election Commission must complete the process of counting preference votes and that is what is delaying the final result," he said in a video message posted on social media.
Economic issues have been at the fore during an eight-week campaign. There has been widespread public anger over the hardships imposed since the crisis peaked two years ago.
Dissanayake has promised not to "tear up" the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal that stipulated austerity as a precondition of economic help. However, he has said he intends to modify the terms under a provision to renegotiate.
Major gains since 2020 amid economic woes
Dissanayake's once-marginal party led two failed Marxist uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s in which some 80,000 people were killed.
In 2020's elections, it had won less than 4% support, but the economic downturn of the last four years proved an opportunity for it to make rapid gains.
Dissanayake has blamed the country's default on its debts in large part on a "corrupt" political culture in Sri Lanka, although geopolitical economic factors certainly also played a role.
"Our country needs a new political culture," he said after casting his ballot on Saturday.
