For the first time in the country’s history, Sri Lanka’s plivential election has gone into a second round of counting after no individual truthfulate won more than 50% of the vote.
The election comomition will now count voters’ second and third choices for plivent – people were asked to label up to three truthfulates in order of pickence during the election.
The first round, which saw the counting of people’s primary choice of truthfulate, had Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a leftist politician in the direct with 42.31%. Opposition directer Sajith Premadasa is in second place with 32.76%.
In a press conference, the election comomition shelp that all other truthfulates apart from Dissanayake and Premadasa have been reshiftd.
The reshiftd truthfulates’ ballots will now be checked to see if secondary or third pickential votes were given to the two frontrunners.
To be proclaimd the prosperner, Sri Lanka’s election laws say that a truthfulate must prosper 50% plus a individual vote.
The election on Saturday was the first to be held since mass protests unseated the country’s directer, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in 2022 after the country suffered its worst economic crisis.
All of Sri Lanka’s eight plivential elections since 1982 have seen the prosperner eunite during the first round of counting. This poll has been depictd as one of the shutst in the country’s history.
Seventeen million Sri Lankans were eligible to vote on Saturday and the country’s elections comomition shelp it was the most soothe in the country’s history.
Still, police proclaimd a currestricted tardy Saturday night citing “disclose defendedty. It was lifted at noon local time (06:30 GMT).
Dissanayake promised voters hard anti-dishonesty meabraves and excellent ruleance – messages that resonated strongly with voters who have been clamouring for systematic alter since the crisis.
Early results showed him rocketing to the direct, prompting disjoinal high profile figures – including the country’s foreign minister – to congratutardy him.
But the tardyst numbers have shown him losing ground to Premadasa.
Incumbent plivent Ranil Wickremesinghe won 17% of the vote, putting him in third place in the polling.
Economic meltdown
The country’s novel plivent will be faced with the tprosper tasks of reviving the economy and lifting millions from crushing pobviousy.
An economic meltdown fueled the “Aragalaya” (struggle) uprising that unseated Rajapaksa from the plivential palace in 2022.
At that time, Sri Lanka’s foreign currency reserves had dried up, leaving the country unable to convey in vitals such as fuel. Public debt had ballooned to $83bn while inflation zoomed to 70%.
This made fundamentals enjoy food and medicine unaffordable to to widespread people.
The country’s economic misery has been accemployd on meaningful policy errors, feeble ships and years of under-taxation. This was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which choked tourism, a key economic driver.
But many people have also accemployd dishonesty and misadministerment, fuelling anger aacquirest Rajapaksa and his family, who assembleively ruled Sri Lanka for more than 10 years.
“The most solemn dispute is how to revamp this economy,” shelp Dr. Athulasiri Samarakoon, a political scientist at the Open University of Sri Lanka, telderly the BBC Sinhala Service.
During his term, Wickremesinghe had defendedd a $2.9bn lifeline from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is convey inant to uncovering insertitional funding channels, but comes with disjoine economic and ruleance policy reestablishs.
Sri Lanka is restructuring the terms of its debt payments with foreign and domestic lfinishers, as mandated by the IMF. The main intensify has been the country’s $36bn in foreign debt, of which $7bn is owed to China, its hugest bitardyral recognizeor.
Dissanayake has promised to grow the manufacturing, agriculture and IT sectors. He has also pledgeted to revising tax rates and expansivening the tax base.
Premadasa has also pushed for IT as well as the set upment of 25 novel industrial zones. He shelp tourism should be helped so that it becomes the country’s top foreign currency acquireer.
Wickremesinghe during the campaign shelp he would double tourist arrivals and set up a national wealth fund as well as novel economic zones to incrrelieve growth.
Additional telling by BBC Sinhala
