Anura Dissanayake, the left-leaning presidential candidate of National People’s Power, is poised to win the Presidential Elections in Sri Lanka as the Election Commission announced second round of vote counting.
In the first counting, no candidates were able to get 50% majority in the presidential election, forcing the Commission to go for a second round where second preference votes would be counted and added to the initial votes secured by first two candidates.
Sri Lanka, which held the Presidential Elections yesterday after the acute economic crises led to mass protests and subsequent ouster of former president, is poised to get Dissanayake as new president as he secured 42.31% of votes in the first counting and is leading in the second round. He was followed by Sajith Premadasa with 32.76% and Ranil Wickremesinghe with 17.27%, Dailymirror of Sri Lanka siad, quoting Commission Chairman Saman Sri Ratnayake.
As per the voting system followed in Sri Lanka, a voter can give three votes in preferential orde
r and when no candidate secure more than 50% of the votes polled, the preferential votes are counted to determine the winner.
According to the Commission, 75% of the 17 million eligible voters cast their votes yesterday. Massive and violent protests following major economic crises in the country had forced former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign from the post.
Though elections were held in a peaceful atmosphere, security authorities had imposed curfew yesterday and extended it until evening today to avoid any untoward incidents. The new president would be officially announced later today as the second round of voting completes.
Source: Kuwait News Agency