Srilanka polls: Ruling party claims landslide victory

Srilanka’s ruling party has won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, the country’s Election Commissioner declared on August 7. The victory once again established Rajapaksa family’s control on power.

Final results showed that Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) or Sri Lanka People Front- won 145 seats in the 225 –member Parliament, just five seats short of a majority.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the two-time former President, was voted out of office in 2015, amid allegations of corruption, nepotism and war crimes.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is now expected to swear his elder brother back into the position, after naming him head of the caretaker government in December.
Following the win, Mahinda Rajapaksa tweeted that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called to congratulate him.

Sri Lanka has had relative success in containing its coronavirus outbreak, due to early lockdowns and widespread testing. The country has recorded 2,839 infections and 11 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. August 5 election, originally scheduled for April, was postponed twice because of the virus.

Other campaign priorities include constitutional reform, with possible focus on the 19th amendment introduced in 2015 that curtailed the powers of the President and strengthened the role of parliament.

Friday’s election is the country’s first parliamentary poll since the deadly terror attacks in April 2019, when a series of bombs ripped through churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing at least 290 people and injuring hundreds.