Lots at stake for India in the September 21 Sri Lankan presidential elections

X: @prashanthamine

New Delhi: There is lots at stake for India in the September 21 Sri Lankan presidential elections, going by the bouts of instability in its immediate neighborhood. A peaceful, stable Sri Lanka augurs well for India as it grapples to seek stability and progress not just for itself, but in the region as a whole.

The outcome of the election could also significantly influence the nation’s geopolitical equations with regional powers such as India, key Western powers and China. While a Ranil Wickremesinghe or Sajith Premadasa government is expected to lean more towards India and the Western powers, a National People’s Power (NPP) government is expected to build closer ties with China.

The Emerald Island nation goes to elect its 10th President on September 21 against the backdrop of the March 2022 civil unrest sparked off by the Sri Lankan protests, commonly known as Aragalaya (The Struggle in Sinhalese). They were a series of mass protests against the former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was forced to resign. His government was heavily criticized for mismanaging the Sri Lankan economy.

Following former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation in July 2022, Ranil Wickremesinghe was indirectly elected by a parliamentary vote on July 20, 2022, to complete the former president’s term.

The 39 candidates represent the largest number contesting a presidential election in Sri Lankan history. The 39 candidates include 22 from recognized political parties, 1 from other parties, and 16 independent candidates.

The three major candidates – Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is this time is running on an independent platform, Sajith Premadasa from the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), and Anura Kumara Dissanayake from the National People’s Power (NPP). There are no women candidates who are contesting in this election.

The incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe is running for presidency on an independent platform. Despite leading the United National Party (UNP), the president’s decision to run on an independent platform was likely driven by the need to accommodate support from various political groups. Wickremesinghe’s economic policy has been closely aligned with the IMF-led recovery program.

The second key presidential aspirant, Sajith Premadasa, is the leader of the SJB. It was formed in 2020 as a breakaway of the UNP. Premadasa lost the 2019 presidential election, coming second after securing 41.99 per cent of the vote.

The SJB is a broad-tent party, and its current alliance, the Samagi Jana Sandhanaya, includes members from a wide range of political camps and parties, including the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, the People’s Freedom Congress (a SLPP-breakaway), the Tamil Progressive Alliance and a faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), according to Rajni Gamage, research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), Singapore.

Namal Rajapaksa, the eldest son of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa (who served from 2005 to 2015) will be the youngest candidate. He represents the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, a breakaway faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. President Wickremesinghe, who entered Parliament through the United National Party (UNP), is contesting as an independent candidate.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People’s Power (NPP) has gained ground over the past year as an alternate political force. He is the leader of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front), a Marxist-Leninist party that led two revolutionary movements in Sri Lanka in the 1970s and 1980s.

The other 16 independent candidates in the poll fray include prominent figures such as Dilith Jayaweeera, ASP Liyanage, former Sri Lankan army chief Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, Nuwan Bopage, Oshala Herath, Janaka Ratnayake, Siripala Amarasinghe, Ariyanenthiran and Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe.

As per International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the May 31 voter registry has 17,140,354 voters who will be eligible to vote in the election. The Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL) will set up 13,134 polling centers across 22 electoral districts. The smallest of the 22 electoral districts is Vanni, with 306,081 voters; the largest is Gampaha, with 1,881,129 voters. Colombo district has 1,765,351 voters.

For the 2024 presidential election, 7,12,321 citizens have qualified for advance voting. The ECSL set the campaign expenditure limit at 109 rupees per voter, bringing the total allowable limit per candidate to 1,868,298,586 rupees, or about $6.2 million USD.

Sri Lanka uses a supplementary voting system through which voters elect a single winner by ranking up to three candidates in order of preference. For a vote to be valid it must be clearly marked to indicate at least one preference.

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If a candidate receives an absolute majority (50 percent plus one) of valid votes cast as a first preference, he or she will be declared the winner. If there is no winner at this stage, a second round of counting takes place. This round includes only the two candidates who received the highest number of votes; all others are eliminated.

If an eliminated ballot paper contains a second or a third-choice vote for one of the remaining two candidates, it is counted in the candidate’s favor. The candidate with the most overall votes in the second round of counting is then declared the winner.

The ECSL releases the first official result within eight hours of the closing of the polls. However, Sri Lanka has never counted the second and third preference votes, so it is not known exactly how long the process of counting of votes takes. However, the final results are announced the day after the informal announcement.