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PremiumSri Lanka elections result 2024 Highlights: Left-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake became the President of Sri Lanka on Sunday following a historic run-off election. The National People’s Power leader defeated his closest rival Sajith Premadasa of Samagi Jana Balawegaya during the second round of counting. Incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe had been eliminated in the first round after he failed to become within the top two in the vote list.
Sri Lankans went to the polls on Saturday to elect the nation’s 10th president, marking the first election since the devastating 2022 economic crisis that led to a loan default. Turnout was at nearly 70 percent an hour before polling stations closed at 4:00 pm (1030 GMT), an election commission official said, citing provisional figures.
Counting to the Sri Lanka elections to declare the 10th President of the nation of 22 million people began at 6 pm.
The Election Commission had ordered a second round of counting after no candidate secured over 50% votes needed to be declared the winner of Saturday's election. No poll in Sri Lanka had ever progressed to the second round of counting until now — with a single candidates always emerging as clear winners based on first-preference votes.
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Political analyst Kusal Perera told AFP it was difficult to predict a winner from the three-way race -- the first in the island's history.
"What is clear is that no candidate will surpass the 50 percent mark" needed to win outright, he said.
Officials would then carry out a count of second- and third-preference votes to determine the winner.
More than 17 million people were eligible to vote in the election, with more than 63,000 police deployed to guard polling booths and counting centres in schools and temples.
The voting in Sri Lanka began at 7amon Saturday across the country’s 13,134 polling stations. Polls closed at 4pm.
Vote counting is expected to start at 6pm.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe faces a challenging fight for re-election as he seeks to secure a fresh mandate to continue the austerity measures that have stabilized Sri Lanka's economy and alleviated months of shortages in food, fuel, and medicine.
