Colombo:
Sri Lanka’s new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s party is on track to win a landslide victory in a snap parliamentary election, initial results showed on Friday.
With more than half of the votes cast in Thursday’s parliamentary elections, the Electoral Commission showed that Dissanayake’s coalition party, the National People’s Power (NPP), had a firm lead with 63% of the vote. Ta.
Friday’s results showed the NPP, which held just three seats in the defunct parliament, comfortably leads in almost every constituency in the 225-member House of Representatives.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake took office in September on a promise to fight corruption and recover assets stolen from the country, two years after then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted due to an unprecedented economic collapse. seized power through elections.
On Thursday, the 55-year-old said he hoped a “strong majority” in Congress would push his platform forward.
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“I believe this is an important election, a turning point for Sri Lanka,” Dissanayake told reporters after voting at a polling station in the capital.
“In this election, the NPP expects to have a very strong majority in parliament,” he said, referring to the coalition party whose main constituent is his JVP (People’s Liberation Front). .
Police said that unlike most voting in recent years, the nine-hour voting period ended without any violence, although three election workers, including a police constable, died of illness on the job.
Turnout was estimated at less than 70 percent, lower than in September’s presidential election, when nearly 80 percent of Sri Lankan voters cast their ballots.
“I’m looking forward to a new country and a new government that is kind to the people,” Milton Gankandaji, a 70-year-old pensioner who was the first to vote in Colombo’s Wellawatte district, told AFP.
“The previous rulers deceived us. We need new rulers who will develop the country.”
Dissanayake had been a member of parliament for nearly 25 years and briefly served as agriculture minister, but his coalition, the NPP, held just three seats in the outgoing parliament.
He rushed into office after successfully distancing himself from establishment politicians accused of leading the country into its worst economic crisis in 2022.
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Although his Japanese Communist Party led two riots in 1971 and 1987 that left at least 80,000 people dead, Dissanayake took office after elections in what is said to be one of the island’s most peaceful countries. .
University academic Sivalogadasan, popularly known as Sivalogadasan, said Dissanayake needs more time to fulfill his promise.
“Some things are starting to change… but we can’t expect it right away,” the 52-year-old told AFP.
“Investor trust”
8,880 candidates competed for 225 seats in parliament. Voting ended after nine hours on Thursday.
Despite earlier promises to renegotiate the controversial $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout secured by his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mr Dissanayake remains in agreement with the international financial institution. chose to keep it.
The country’s main private organization, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has tacitly supported Mr. Dissanayake and his program.
“Continued reforms can foster both investor confidence and fiscal discipline, laying the foundations for sustainable growth,” CCC Secretary Bwanekabahu Perera told AFP.
An IMF delegation will be in Colombo on Thursday to assess economic developments before releasing the next $330 million tranche of relief loans.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, who had been campaigning to join the coalition government, vowed at his last election rally to “pressure” Dissanayake to keep his promise to cut taxes.
“Previous conclusion”
Poll monitors and analysts said Thursday’s election failed to generate the level of enthusiasm or violence seen in previous polls.
“The opposition is dead,” said political analyst Kusal Perera. “The election results are a foregone conclusion.”
The parliament to be abolished was dominated by brothers Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who both came from powerful political families and served as president, but has since split.
Neither Mr. Rajapaksa is running, but Mr. Mahinda’s son, Namal, a former sports minister, is seeking re-election.
Damayanta Perera, 49, a private sector executive, said he knew Thursday’s election results would favor Dissanayake’s NPP, so he voted for a party that had no chance of winning.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
