Why did Sri Lanka undergo an unprecedented second vote count? – Firstpost

History was made in Sri Lanka.

For the first time in its history, the country had to conduct a second round of vote counting in the presidential elections.

This comes after President Ranil Wickremesinghe was eliminated from the race in a surprise result. According to several media reports, Marxist MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake is in the lead and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa is in second place.

But what do we know about this unprecedented development in Sri Lanka?

Let’s take a closer look:

What happened?

A second round of vote counting took place in Sri Lanka after none of the candidates achieved the minimum score of 50 percent plus one vote required by the constitution to win the presidential election.

In every presidential election in the country so far there has been a winner in the first round.

Dissanayake receives 42.31 percent of the vote, while Premadasa receives 32.76 percent.

Wickremesinghe received only 17.41 percent of the votes.

He, like all other candidates, has dropped out of the race.

Sri Lankan voters were asked to rank their three presidential candidates according to their preference.

The ballots of the eliminated candidates are now checked for preferences and these votes are added to their respective vote totals.

The candidate with the highest number of votes is then declared the winner.

Deccan Herald RMAL quoted Ratnayak as saying that the development would delay the election result.

It quoted followers of Anura Kumara Dissanayake as saying: Daily Mirror newspaper that they were confident their husband would win.

In the 2019 election, in which Gotabaya Rajapaksa emerged victorious after the Easter attacks, Dissanayake received only 3.2 percent of the vote.

Dissanayake’s campaign on behalf of the working class and against the political elite made him popular among the youth at that time.

Saturday’s election is crucial as the country tries to recover from the worst economic crisis in its history and the resulting political upheaval. Although there were 38 candidates in the race, it was essentially a three-way contest between Dissanayake, Wickremesinghe and Premadasa.

The results suggest that voters have had enough of the old political guard, which is accused of pushing Sri Lanka towards economic instability.

Wickremesinghe’s Foreign Minister Ali Sabry congratulated Dissanayake on the social platform X and expressed the hope that he would “lead with a commitment to transparency, integrity and the long-term good of the country”.

“I wish Mr Dissanayake and his team every success in their efforts to move Sri Lanka forward,” Sabry added.

The election was effectively a referendum on Wickremesinghe’s leadership of a fragile recovery that includes restructuring Sri Lanka’s debt under an International Monetary Fund bailout program after the country defaults in 2022.

Dissanayake, 55, leads the left-wing National People Power coalition, an alliance of civil society groups, experts, Buddhist clerics and students.

Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe cast his vote in the country’s presidential election on Saturday. The vote will determine how Sri Lanka will recover from its worst economic crisis and the resulting political upheaval.

No major incidents were reported during the vote, but authorities imposed a nationwide curfew until Sunday noon as a precautionary measure, police said.

There were 17 million eligible voters.

The government announced on Thursday that it had cleared the final hurdle in the debt restructuring by reaching an agreement in principle with private bondholders.

At the time of the default, Sri Lanka’s domestic and external debt totaled $83 billion. The government says it has since restructured over $17 billion.

Despite a significant improvement in key economic indicators, people in Sri Lanka are struggling with high taxes and living costs.

Both Premadasa and Dissanayake say they would renegotiate the IMF deal to make the austerity more bearable. Wickremesinghe warned that any change in the fundamentals of the agreement could delay the release of a fourth tranche of nearly $3 billion that is crucial to maintaining stability.

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis resulted largely from excessive borrowing for projects that did not generate revenue. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s insistence on using scarce foreign exchange reserves to support the rupee currency contributed to the economy’s free fall.

The economic collapse led to severe shortages of essential goods such as medicines, food, cooking gas and fuel. People stood in line for days to get these items. Riots broke out, with protesters occupying key buildings, including the President’s house, his office and the Prime Minister’s office. The then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to flee the country and resign.

Wickremesinghe was elected by a parliamentary vote in July 2022 to serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s five-year term.

With contributions from agencies