COLOMBO: Sri Lankans handed Anura Kumara Dissanayake a thumping win in a snap general election, giving its new leftist president greater legislative power to pursue policies to alleviate poverty and fight graft as the country recovers from a financial meltdown.
Dissanayake, a political outsider in a country dominated by family parties for decades, comfortably won the island’s presidential election in September.
But his Marxist-leaning coalition, the National People’s Power (NPP), had just three of parliament’s 225 seats before Thursday’s (Nov 14) election, prompting him to dissolve it and seek a fresh mandate.
NPP won 107 seats, receiving almost 62 per cent or 6.8 million votes in Thursday’s election, putting them past the majority mark in the parliament, the latest results on the Election Commission of Sri Lanka’s website showed.
A two-third majority appeared within reach of the coalition.
Voters directly elect 196 members to parliament from 22 constituencies under a proportional representation system.
The remaining 29 seats will be allocated according to the island-wide proportional vote obtained by each party.
“We see this as a critical turning point for Sri Lanka. We expect a mandate to form a strong parliament, and we are confident the people will give us this mandate,” Dissanayake said after casting his vote on Thursday.
“There is a change in Sri Lanka’s political culture that started in September, which must continue.”
Celebrations were largely muted, with the exception of a few NPP loyalists who lit fireworks in the outskirts of the capital, Colombo.
Just over 17 million Sri Lankans were eligible to elect lawmakers for a five-year term. A record 690 political parties and independent groups were contesting across 22 electoral districts.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya party, the main challenger to Dissanayake’s coalition, won 28 seats and about 18 per cent of the votes polled.
The New Democratic Front, backed by previous President Ranil Wickremesinghe, won just three seats.
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