Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition won landslide in snap parliamentary polls
Reportedly Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition won a landslide in snap parliamentary polls on Friday, with voters rejecting establishment parties as triggering the economic crisis. The National People’s Power, contesting under the Malimawa (compass) symbol, won at least 123 seats in the 225 member parliament after securing around 62 percent of the vote in ballots counted so far, as per election commission data. The results for 25 out of total 196 seats were left to be declared. Another 29 seats were expected to be allocated to all parties based on the cumulative national polling.Perhaps the NPP, which took a commanding lead over its rivals, is on track to get a two third majority as it is expected to add to its tally a bulk from the 29 seats, taking the party to the absolute majority of 150 seats in the 225 member assembly. The party, which is the predominant Sinhala majority party from the southern part of the country, won the entire northern Jaffna district, which is the cultural capital of the tamil minority. It did so by defeating traditional tamil nationalist parties. The grand old United National party (UNP) had previously won an odd solitary seat in Jaffna. But, the NPP won the Jaffna district with more than 80,000 votes while the grand old tamil party trailed by a little over 63,000 in the final count.Moreover the financial crash was the worst in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka’s history as an independent nation, sparking months-long shortages of food, fuel and essential medicines. The resulting public anger culminated in the storming of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s compound, prompting his resignation and temporary exile.