Masked Sri Lankans flock to booths
Sri Lankans, wearing face masks and carrying their own pens, turned out in large numbers to vote on Wednesday in the twice-postponed parliamentary election, which is expected to be won by the powerful Rajapaksa family-run Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP).
According to Chairman of the National Election Commission Mahinda Deshapriya, the election, conducted amidst Covid-19 pandemic fears, concluded in a peaceful manner, with the voter turnout being 70 per cent.
Ampara (72.8 per cent), Kilinochchi (71.52 per cent), Mannar (79.49 per cent), Vavuniya (74 per cent), Mullaitivu (76.25 per cent), Trincomalee (73.5 per cent), Batticaloa (76.15 per cent), and Nuwara Eliya (75 per cent) recorded high voter turnout.
The polls closed at 5 pm local time and the ballot boxes were transported to counting centres. The counting would take place only on Thursday — a departure from the practice of counting the ballots from 8 pm on the election night. The results would be announced by Thursday evening, said Deshapriya.
“We have to be grateful to the voting public for recording such a high turnout despite Covid fears,” he said.
He said considering that the election was delayed by more than three months and various conflicts among some political groups, the voters should be praised for turning up in large numbers and recording a 70 per cent turnout. Long queues of voters were seen at polling centres in some districts from the time polling began at 7 am.
The election monitoring groups said despite a few complaints of illegal activities by certain groups, the election was held peacefully.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa voted in his Colombo suburb polling station, while his brother and the prime ministerial aspirant Mahinda Rajapaksa voted in his home constituency in the southern district of Hambantota.
“We are hopeful of winning two-thirds support,” Mahinda, 74, told reporters after voting. He said his younger brother Gotabaya’s election as president was endorsed by 6.9 million voters last December and that he was hopeful of securing the same support.
Former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who voted in Colombo, said that only his party, UNP, was capable of turning around the economy, which is currently in poor state due to Covid-19 and mishandling by the current government.
Mahinda’s SLPP is expected to win control of the 225-member Assembly by a comfortable margin, according to analysts. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa hopes for a two-thirds majority for the SLPP in the general election, so that he can amend the Constitution to restore presidential powers curbed by a 2015 constitutional change.
The president is not a candidate, while Mahinda is running from the northwestern capital district of Kurunegala.
The country’s election monitoring body — the People's Action for a Free and Fair Election — has deployed 5,000 observers across the nation to monitor the election process.