Lankans flock to voting stations
colombo — Sri Lankans shrugged off fears of the novel coronavirus and streamed into polling centres on Wednesday to elect a new parliament that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa hopes will clear the way for him to boost his powers.
Rajapaksa is seeking a twothirds majority for his party in the 225-seat parliament to enable constitutional reforms to make the presidency more powerful so he can implement his economic and national security agenda.
Voters, who wore masks and kept one metre apart, seemed keen to have their say with a third of the electorate casting ballots in the first four hours, the Election Commission said.
“If they come at this rate we should get between 65 and 70 per cent, which is good given the Covid situation,” said top Election Commission official Saman Sri Rathnayake.
Sri Lanka had reported 2,828 cases of the virus and 11 deaths as of Tuesday, which is small compared with other Asian countries.
Election officials wore transparent face shields while medical personnel were deployed to ensure voters abided by rules to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“The polling station is safer than the beach, the restaurant and the marketplace,” said the chairman of the Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya.
Rajapaksa won the presidency last November vowing to restore relations with China, which had been strained by disputes over some Chinese investments.
He is hoping to install his older brother who is also a former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, as prime minister. The brothers built their political careers as nationalist champions of the majority Sinhalese, Buddhist community.
They are best known for crushing ethnic minority Tamil separatist insurgents who battled for decades for a homeland in the island’s north and east. —