Presidential Election, 21 September 2024

The president of Sri Lanka is directly elected through a supplementary voting system: voters rank at least one, and up to three candidates in order of preference. If a candidate wins an absolute majority, they are declared the winner. If not, a second round is held to determine the winner between the top two, by transferring second or third preferences from candidates eliminated in the first round. The president serves a five-year term and selects the cabinet (IFES n.d.;Freedom House 2024). 

The election management body is the independent Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL) (IFES n.d.). Voting is voluntary (ACE n.d.), with early voting allowed for officers engaged in essential services, state officers, and personnel of police and civil defence forces who are engaged in security duties (ECSL n.d.). The EU’s election observation mission (EOM) stated that about 712,000 early voters were registered for this election (EU 2024). 

The 2024 presidential election took place on 21 September with 38 candidates running, none of them female, and around half actively campaigning. The electoral campaign was affected by misuse of incumbency, with President Wickremesinghe distorting the playing field through introducing salary increments for the public sector, debt restructuring for farmers and interest-free student loans only a few days before early voting began. There was a lack of separation between public administration and Wickremesinghe’s campaign, with public officials actively campaigning for the President using public resources and attending the president’s rallies (EU 2024).

Fake opinion polls and postal voting results were posted on social media across multiple platforms. The ECSL received 2,010 complaints about social media during the campaign, 389 of these regarding disinformation and 231 about misinformation. Most of the offending posts were taken down (Economynext 2024), but social media campaigning persisted into election day itself. Despite these challenges, the contest was peaceful, fundamental freedoms were broadly respected and the transparency of the process was upheld by the ECSL. Results were accepted by all lead candidates (EU 2024).

The ESCL worked together with the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) ahead of the election to make contingency plans for any extreme weather during it. A Joint Election Emergencies Operation Unit (JEEOps) was established at the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC), operating from 19 September to 23 September 2024 with the main objective to prevent potential disruption (Disaster Management Centre n.d.).

Women’s participation in political life is exceptionally low, with all candidates being men and few women in leadership roles. The EU EOM observed that 49% of rallies and campaign events had no female speakers. However, the majority of election workers at observed polling stations and counting centers were women. Yet only 37% of chief counting officers were women, while 96% of senior presiding officers (SPOs) in polling stations were men, partly due to the requirement for SPOs to stay overnight at polling stations to secure election materials (EU 2024).

In the first round, no candidate received a majority of votes. This led—for the first time in Sri Lanka—to a second round of voting. First round results (i.e., before addition of second and third preference votes) had shown left-leaning candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake on 42.3 per cent, with his rival Sajith Premadasa on 32.8 per cent. The incumbent President Wickremesinghe, from the centre-right United National Party, won 17 per cent of first round votes, placing him third (Perera and Guinto 2024).

Voter turnout was 79.46 per cent, a decline compared to the 2019 election which saw an 83.72 per cent turnout  (International IDEA n.d.).