Sri Lanka President’s party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has swept the parliamentary elections held Wednesday (August 05) to elect 196 members to the 225-member parliament.
The SLPP received 6,853,693 votes and secured 128 electoral seats and with the 17 national list members has gained 145 seats in the parliament although just shy of the two-third majority the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa expected.
The SLPP while the Samagi Jana Balawegaya and secured 54 seats. Accordingly, the Sri Lanka People’s Front has won this election with a majority of 4,081,709 votes.
The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), the breakaway party from the United National Party (UNP) led by Sajith Premadasa came in second with 2,771,984 votes wining 47 electoral seats and received 7 national list slots totaling 54 seats in the 9th parliament.
Premadasa, who was the opposition leader of the 8th parliament following the election of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is expected to be the Opposition Leader of the new parliament.
The United National Party (UNP) led by former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe meanwhile, receiving 2.15% of the votes came at a distant 5th place behind the JVP led Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JBB) and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and failed to secure a single electoral seat.
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna has won 128 seats in all Nuwara Eliya, Anuradhapura, Badulla, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Kalutara, Moneragala, Matale, Kegalle, Kurunegala, Ratnapura, Gampaha, Colombo, Kandy, Digamadulla, Puttalam and Polonnaruwa districts while the SJB won 47 seats in the Trincomalee district.
Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), the main constituent party of Tamil National Alliance got 10 seats including 1 on the national list while the JBB led by JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake had won 445,000 votes or 3.84 percent taking 3 seats including one national list seat.
The EPDP has won two seats in the Wanni and Jaffna districts while the Sri Lanka Freedom Party has won one seat in the Jaffna district. Sri Lanka Muslim Congress has won one seat from the Batticaloa District.
Courtesy: Colombo Page
