Sri Lanka counts preferential votes to elect President

No candidate has obtained 50 percent of votes in the first count in Sri Lanka's presidential election, setting the stage for a second round of counting that will determine the winner between the top two, using preferential votes.

RMAL Ratnayake, the head of the Election Commission of Sri Lanka, officially announced on Sunday the counting of the second preference of the two leading candidates, Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake who has the lead. In contrast, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa is in second place.

According to the country's electoral rules, a candidate is required to grab 50 percent of votes in the first count to secure an outright victory.

If no candidate wins 50 percent votes in the first round, a second round of counting occurs between the two leading candidates from the first round.

In the second count, the second preference of the ballot papers for the eliminated candidates is considered. If those second preferences are for either of the top two candidates, they are transferred to their tallies.

According to the first count, Dissanayake, 55 has a lead with nearly 40 percent votes followed by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa is in second place with 34.32 percent votes, while incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was touted as one of the two front-runners along with Dissanayake, is third with 17.47 percent votes.

Election authorities said about 76 percent of the 17.1 million eligible voters turned out to vote.

Thirty-eight candidates ran Saturday in the presidential election, the first since Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy in 2022, leading to the ouster of the government, including the serving president.

The election was seen as a referendum on Wickremesinghe’s two years in office, which has seen a slight recovery in the country’s economy since the 2022 financial crisis.