The second and decisive round of elections is now between the Marxist-inspired Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. When around half of the 17 million votes had been counted, the two candidates had respectively 40 per cent and 34 per cent of the votes.
Incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe was far behind with only 17 percent support. He is now eliminated from the election, but has so far not conceded defeat.
The country’s election authorities report that there was around 75 percent turnout.
Sri Lanka’s electoral system allows voters to choose their top three candidates and rank them in order of preference. If none of the candidates gets a majority, then there will be a new election round with only the two leading candidates.
The ballots of voters of other candidates are then checked to see if any of the leading candidates have been listed, and the votes are then added to the candidate in question.
Economic crisis and discontent resulted in 2022 in large protests that forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country. Wickremesinghe has since served as president, and the election is the first since the crisis.
#elections #Sri #Lanka #country #president
2024-09-23 10:15:13
