Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power of President Anura Dissanayake has swept the 2024 parliamentary elections raking in a two thirds majority winning 159 out of 225 seats in the assembly.
The NPP painted the island winning across ethnicities and religious groups and made history wining the Northern Jaffna district.
Link to detailed results here.
Since the preferential votes started under the current constitution, no single party on its own has been able to get such a majority.
Sri Lanka’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya headed by Sajith Premadasa was a distant second with 40 seats, in a poll with the lowest turnout since 2010.
The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress got 3.
The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi got 8 seats, the New Democratic Front backed by ex-President Ranil Wickremesinghe got 5. United National Party separately got 1.
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna won 3.
The Sarvajana Balaya, Democratic Tamil National Alliance, All Ceylon Tamil Congress, All Ceylon Makkal Congress, Jaffna – Independent Group 17 and the Sri Lanka Labour Party won one seat each.
Soon after casting his vote, President Dissanayake said he expected a strong mandate but did not need a two third majority to govern as they had no plans to bring laws against the people.
“The NPP expects a strong mandate for the parliament,” he said after casting his vote in Colombo. “We are confident that the people will give it to us. A strong parliament is sufficient for us.
“The laws and bills that we bring will be beneficial for the people. So, no one in the parliament can go against them.
“If we make laws to benefit the people a thirds vote can be obtained. Always a two thirds majority (of members) is expected to pass laws against the people. Other political movements have used the two thirds majority to formulate laws against the people.”
Among the campaign promises given by the NPP is to abolish the executive presidency which requires a two thirds majority and a referendum.
Sri Lanka went to polls amid a stabilization crisis after a currency collapse from aggressive macro-economic policy involving rate cuts enforced with aggressive liquidity operations on top of tax cuts.
Among the unpopular measures imposed under the IMF program was high personal income taxes which impoverished middle class wage earners by taking away earnings before they were spent.
The NPP hopes to negotiate down some of the taxes in talks to the IMF next week.