Sri Lanka is gearing up for a snap parliamentary election scheduled for Thursday, marking the first general election since the island nation’s devastating economic crisis in 2022. The election, which will take place across over 13,000 polling stations, is seen as a key test of the political landscape following the country’s financial collapse and the resignation of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The near 17.1 million eligible voters in the country will cast their ballots for a five-year parliament composed of 225 members. Security will be intensified on the entire island, with some 90,000 personnel—including policemen and military members—who are tasked with securing the voters while conducting effective elections. Balloting will run from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time, as authorities anticipate a massive turnout on this election day due to its importance.
At such a time that Sri Lanka is still trying to feel its way out of the worst economic crisis since gaining independence, a snap election, called by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has taken place. In April last year, Sri Lanka defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time in its history. Mass protests continued for months as the situation worsened. The crisis, which had been characterized by acute shortages of essential goods and wholesale inflation, had compelled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country last July 2022.
Dissanayake’s party, which emerged victorious in the presidential election in September 2024, is seeking a strong mandate to push his reform agenda. The National People’s Power, Dissanayake’s Marxist-leaning party, only holds three seats in the outgoing parliament, which is now set to dissolve ahead of the election. His administration will need a strong majority to implement their policies, among them anti-corruption measures and economic reforms that Sri Lanka is continuing discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a bailout package.
The snap election is widely seen as a test of Dissanayake’s popularity and the strength of his policies. Despite winning the presidential election, Dissanayake was unable to secure a majority of votes in September, failing to reach the 50% threshold. He is now hoping that a stronger showing in the parliamentary polls will give him the leverage he needs to push through his reformist agenda.
The election will also determine the future direction of Sri Lanka’s recovery efforts. The country is still in the process of recovering from the economic crisis, and Dissanayake’s government faces the challenge of meeting IMF targets related to revenue generation in the third review of the USD 2.9 billion bailout program.
The Voting Process
Voting will take place in all 22 districts, with voters directly electing 196 members of parliament based on proportional representation. Each voter is allowed to cast up to three preferential votes for individual candidates. The remaining 29 seats will be filled using a cumulative national vote tally, with parties allocated seats based on their performance across the island.
The election process will be monitored by local and international observers, including the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), which deployed both short-term and long-term observers across the country to ensure a fair and transparent process. Observers will monitor all stages of the election, including campaigning, voting, and the counting of ballots.
Key Districts and Candidates
The western province of Gampaha will elect the highest number of parliamentarians, with 19 seats up for grabs. Colombo, the country’s capital, will elect 18 MPs, while the eastern province district of Trincomalee will elect the fewest, with just four members of parliament.
The election will also see the absence of several high-profile political figures. Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who lost to Dissanayake in the presidential election, is not contesting the parliamentary election for the first time since 1977. Likewise, members of the Rajapaksa family, including Mahinda, Gotabaya, Chamal, and Basil Rajapaksa, will not be running for office after decades of political dominance.
Tight Security
There will be tight security in the election procedure as there is a high deployment of personnel for manning polling stations and mobile police patrols for all routes to monitor all the happenings of the election. The Election Commission has promised the nation that equipment, among them polling boxes, will be provided in sufficient amounts well in time before the actual vote, and officials will be rehearsing the operations at the polling stations so that everything is in motion on election day.
There are ten countries deployed internationally as observers to monitor the election process. According to International Election Observers, the process of an election should be peaceful to uphold that a democratic, fair election is conducted. The entire election process, from campaigning to transporting the ballots, and the final tally of the votes, will be observed by inquiring critics.
The parliament election results will be announced on Friday, and a new cabinet can be expected to be formed soon after. President Dissanayake will present his throne speech to the new parliament on November 21, detailing the main activities he will do to fulfill his top policy priorities, such as anti-corruption measures and economic reforms for stabilizing the country’s finances.
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