Sri Lankan president’s NPP gets two-thirds majority in parliamentary polls

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Friday swept the parliamentary elections by winning a two-thirds majority in the parliament, the election commission result said.

The NPP, which contested under the Malimawa (compass) symbol secured 159 out of the 225 seats in the parliament, according to the results on the election commission website.

Sri Lanka’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya headed by Sajith Premadasa was a distant second with 40 seats in Thursday's poll which saw the lowest turnout since 2010.

The NPP also made history by polling the highest number of votes in Tamil-dominated Jaffna electoral district, and winning three out of its six seats under the proportional representation system.

This is the first time that a predominantly Sinhala party from the south of the country has beaten traditional Tamil nationalist parties in the district. The United National Party (UNP) had previously won a solitary seat here.

The NPP bagged over 80,000 votes, beating Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) which got a little over 63,000 votes in the final count of Thursday's polling.

The ITAK, All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), and Independent Group 17 won one seat each.

This resonated pre-election comments by President Dissanayake who said his party was being accepted as a truly national party by all communities. “The era of dividing and setting one community against the other has ended as people are embracing the NPP," Dissanayake, the NPP leader, said.

The NPP under its original Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) violently opposed any attempt of power sharing -- a key Tamil demand during the armed separatist campaign of the LTTE. The Tamils only saw them as Sinhala majority racists.

The NPP received over 6.8 million or 61 per cent of the votes counted, taking a commanding lead over its rivals.

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.

Sri Lanka went to polls amid a stabilisation 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 programme 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.

The election came a year ahead of schedule as Dissanyaake dismissed the parliament immediately after taking charge as the president in September.

The new parliament is set to meet next week.