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Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka sometime between September and October 2024, according to the Constitution of Sri Lanka. Voters will elect a president for a term of five years. Incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe is eligible to run for re-election. [1]
The President of Sri Lanka is elected via limited ranked voting. Voters can express up to three ranked preferences for President. If no candidate receives over 50% of valid votes on the first count, all candidates except for the two candidates receiving the highest number of votes are eliminated. The second and third preferences of the eliminated candidates are distributed until one of the remaining two candidates receives an outright majority. [2] In practice, this system has seen little use, as each direct election going back to the first in 1981 has resulted in a candidate from one of the two major parties or alliances at the time winning in the first count. For this reason, many citizens opt to mark only one candidate, and many are wholly unaware that multiple candidates can be ranked at all. [3]
The last direct presidential elections held in Sri Lanka were in 2019, where SLPP candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the election in a landslide victory, defeating his main opponent Sajith Premadasa. [4] [5] Rajapaksa would eventually resign on 14 July 2022 amidst the 2022 Sri Lankan protests. [6] This triggered an indirect presidential election via Parliament a week later, to elect a successor according to the Article 40 of the Constitution. [7] Then-incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was appointed by Rajapaksa just two months earlier, received the most votes and was sworn in as the 9th President of Sri Lanka on 21 July 2022. [8] [9]
Article 40 of the Constitution of Sri Lanka states that "Any person so succeeding to the office of President shall hold office only for the unexpired period of the term of office of the President vacating office." [10] Accordingly, the next presidential election must be held no later than November 2024.
Sri Lankan recent election results | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dates of elections |
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPFA) |
Samagi Jana Balawegaya | National People's Power | Tamil National Alliance | United National Party | Others | ||||||||
Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | |||
2019 presidential election | 6,924,255 | 52.25% | - | - | 418,553 | 3.16% | - | - | 5,564,239 | 41.99% [i] | 345,452 | 2.35% | ||
2020 parliamentary election | 6,853,690 | 59.09% | 2,771,980 | 23.90% | 445,958 | 3.84% | 327,168 | 2.82% | 249,435 | 2.15% | 950,698 | 8.20% |
Sri Lankan recent election results | |
---|---|
2019 presidential election | 2020 parliamentary election |
Elected members of each electoral district or municipality, gaining the highest number of votes |
Candidate | Political office and constituency | Date declared | Notes | Ref. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ranil Wickremesinghe (75) United National Party |
Current
President of Sri Lanka (since 2022) Leader of the United National Party (since 1994) Former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (1993–1994, 2001–2004, 2015–2019, 2022) |
8 April 2023 | Wickremesinghe has not officially declared his candidacy, even though his party has unofficially announced it. | [1] | |
Sajith Premadasa (57) Samagi Jana Balawegaya |
Current
Leader of the Opposition (since 2019) Leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (since 2020) Colombo |
16 May 2023 | [11] | ||
Janaka Ratnayake (59) Independent |
Former Chairman of the
Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (2021–2023) Chairman and CEO of Trillium Property Management & Services Limited (since 2014) |
24 May 2023 | [12] | ||
Anura Kumara Dissanayake (55) National People's Power |
Former Minister and
Chief Opposition Whip (2015–2018) Leader of the National People's Power (since 2015) Leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (since 2014) Colombo |
29 August 2023 | [13] |
Date | Polling firm |
Dissanayake NPP |
Premadasa SJB |
Wickremesinghe UNP |
SLPP | Lead | Margin of error |
Sample size |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
February 2024 | Institute for Health Policy | 53% | 34% | 6% | 7% | 19% | ±1–4% | 16,234 |
January 2024 | Institute for Health Policy | 50% | 36% | 7% | 7% | 14% | ±1–4% | 15,590 |
December 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 50% | 33% | 9% | 8% | 17% | ±1–4% | 14,941 |
October 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 51% | 30% | 13% | 6% | 21% | ±1–4% | 13,935 |
September 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 46% | 29% | 17% | 8% | 17% | ±1–3% | 13,431 |
August 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 38% | 35% | 18% | 9% | 3% | ±1–3% | 12,848 |
July 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 39% | 33% | 19% | 9% | 6% | ±1–3% | 12,269 |
June 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 40% | 35% | 15% | 9% | 5% | ±1–3% | 11,926 |
May 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 38% | 34% | 18% | 10% | 4% | ±1–4% | 11,897 |
April 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 45% | 37% | 13% | 6% | 8% | ±1–4% | 11,367 |
March 2023 | Institute for Health Policy | 48% | 37% | 11% | 4% | 11% | ±1–5% | 10,601 |
In IHP SLOTS polling in January 2024, all major party candidates continued to have negative favourability ratings. The net favourability rating of NPP/JVP candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayaka increased by 12 points to -10 whilst the favourability ratings of SJB candidate Sajith Premadasa and incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe each decreased by 9 points to -53 and -77 respectively. [20]