Sri Lanka election 2024: Who could be the next president, what’s at stake?

Sri Lankans will vote on Saturday to elect the South Asian nation’s 10th president in the first election since the catastrophic 2022 economic crisis that saw the country default on its loans.

Months of food and fuel shortages had caused political chaos forcing then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country in July 2022.

The incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over from Rajapaksa and has since tried to turn the economy around, is seeking re-election. He is being challenged by Anura Kumara Dissanayake from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party and Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party.

Here is how the election will be held, what the top candidates are promising — and what’s at stake for the nation of 22 million people.

What time does the polling start in Sri Lanka?

The voting will begin at 7am (01:30 GMT) on Saturday across the country’s 13,134 polling stations. Polls close at 4pm (10:30GMT). Vote counting is expected to start at 9:30pm (16:00 GMT).

How do elections in Sri Lanka work?

• An independent body called the Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL) oversees the election.
• About 17 million people out of Sri Lanka’s 22-million population are eligible to vote. Sri Lankan nationals aged 18 years or above, who are registered with the election commission, can vote.
• Police, army and other public servants who cannot cast their votes in person on election day vote through postal ballots in advance. This year, the advance voting took place on September 11 and 12, according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).
• Voters rank up to three candidates in order of their preference on a ballot paper.
• A candidate needs to secure 50 percent of votes as a first preference to secure the presidential seat in the first round.
• If no candidate wins 50 percent in the first round, a second round of counting takes place between the top two candidates from the first round. Other candidates are eliminated.
• No run-off vote is conducted to determine the president. Instead, the second preferences of the ballot papers for the eliminated candidates are considered. If those second preferences are for either of the top two candidates, they are transferred to their tallies.
• If one of the two remaining candidates is marked as the third preference, the vote is counted for that candidate.
• According to the 19th Amendment of Sri Lanka’s Constitution, passed in 2015, the president holds office for five years, and has a two-term limit.

Who are the key candidates?

A total of 38 candidates are vying to win the top executive post in the South Asian nation. While the number of candidates was initially 39, one candidate, independent Idroos Mohamed Ilyas, died of a heart attack in August.

The key candidates are:

Ranil Wickremesinghe, a six-time prime minister, assumed office as interim president in July 2022 following Rajapaksa’s removal. While the 75-year-old has been affiliated with the centre-right United National Party (UNP), he is running for the top job as an independent candidate.

Wickremesinghe is campaigning with his slogan “Puluwan Sri Lanka” or “Sri Lanka Can” and on the message that he pulled the country out of economic duress.

But while several economic indices have improved — inflation is down dramatically, and the gross domestic product (GDP) is growing — Wickremesinghe is also criticised by opponents for belonging to the very same political elite that is blamed for the 2022 economic crisis. The incumbent president has governed with the backing of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party of the Rajapaksa family.

Critics also accuse Wickremasinghe — whose policies have included cuts in social welfare schemes to balance the country’s books — of making the weaker sections of Sri Lankan society bear the brunt of the sacrifices needed for the nation’s economic recovery.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake is from the Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which has emerged in popularity after the 2022 crisis.

But Dissanayake’s popularity has been on the rise since the mass protest movement – known as the Aragalaya [Sinhalese for “struggle”] – erupted against then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. Both were forced to resign.

The 55-year-old Dissanayake played an active role in the protest movement and has been critical of a bailout deal Wikremesinghe struck with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has increased the cost of living for Sri Lankans.

Though the JVP party is still a marginal player in Sri Lanka’s parliament, Dissanayake’s popularity has been soaring. At the centre of his political campaign is a promise to eliminate corruption that appears to have resonated with large sections of Sri Lankan society.

Sajith Premadasa founded the populist Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) after breaking away from Wikremesinghe’s UNP. Premadasa, son of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa, is the current leader of opposition in Sri Lanka’s parliament.

A longtime rival of Wickremasinghe when they both belonged to the UNP, Premadasa also contested the 2019 presidential election, in which he lost to Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

His father, the former President Premadasa, was assassinated in 1993 by rebels belonging to the Tamil separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. But Premadasa, in recent years, has tried to court the country’s Tamil vote — the community constitutes 11 percent of the Buddhist-majority nation.

A prominent party representing Tamils from the north and east of the country, the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), has thrown its support behind the opposition leader Premadasa. In the 2019 election, a considerable number of Tamils voted for him.

Namal Rajapaksa from the SLPP is the youngest candidate at 38 and is the eldest son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has served as both the country’s president and prime minister. He is the nephew of removed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and is claiming to bring change to the table. However, support for the Rajapaksa family is at its lowest due to the economic havoc of 2022.

Namal Rajapaksa was minister of youth and sports under his uncle’s presidency between 2020 and 2022.

None of the 38 candidates in the election are women, though Sri Lanka gave the world its first female PM – Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike – in 1960.

Who is leading the polls in Sri Lanka?

Polls suggest Dissanayake could be the frontrunner.

This includes the Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey by the Institute for Health Policy (IHP), which showed the leftist leader at 48 percent, followed by Premadasa at 25 percent. Incumbent Wickremesinghe is third with 20 percent. Namal Rajapaksa trails far behind at 5 percent.

According to the website Numbers.Ik, which compiles statistics about Sri Lanka, Dissanayake is leading with 40 percent, followed by Premadasa at 29 percent and Wickremesinghe at 25 percent. This is based on online data collected between September 9 and September 16.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake addresses the final public rally before the election in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on September 18 [Eranga Jayawardena/AP]

What’s at stake?

The economy is arguably the biggest issue for Sri Lankans in the election. The country’s economy crashed in 2022, with inflation shooting up to 70 percent and the currency depreciated by 45 percent. For months, people formed long queues to fetch fuel, which badly affected daily lives.

Former President Rajapaksa’s economic policy and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic are believed to have contributed to the worst economic crisis in the island nation.

While some economic indicators have improved under Wickremasinghe, critics say that has come at a cost: IMF loans have meant that taxes and electricity prices have been hiked as part of the deal with the international lender.

“Due to the erosion of the socioeconomic indicators such as food security and poverty rates, the wellbeing and people’s development is severely at stake,” said Rajni Gamage from the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.

While both Premadasa and Dissanayake have said they will continue with the IMF bailout negotiated with Wickremesinghe last year, they have pledged to reduce taxes and privatisation. Premadesa, in an interview with the Associated Press news agency, said he had already started talks with the IMF to ease people’s tax burden.

This year, the votes of ethnic minorities could turn the election just as they have in previous polls. The leading candidates are all Sinhalese, but the voters come from a diverse set of communities including Tamil, Moor, Muslim and Burgher.

While Dissanayake’s campaign is built around rallying popular support, he has said he does not regret supporting the Rajapaksa government’s war against the Tamil Tigers. The armed rebellion by the Tamil rebels was crushed in 2009 under President Mahinda Rajapaksa after 26 years.

Wickremesinghe, on the other hand, is trying to appeal to Tamil politicians, to eat into the community’s support for Premadasa.

“One thing that really stands out as different about this election is the absence of a strong ideological discourse among the three main candidates,” said Gamage of the National University of Singapore.

“The kind of divisive Sinhala Buddhist nationalism we saw in the 2019 presidential campaign is much more muted now,” she told Al Jazeera.

“If you look at the three main candidates, there is more or less consensus on having to continue with the current IMF programme.

“There are small distinctions made on how this would be done, that is, governance indicators, and some difference in the role of the market and the state, but overall, there is what we identify as a liberal consensus.”

When will the results be released?

The electoral authority has not given a specific date for election results.

In the 2019 election, the results were declared a day after polling.

What happens if no one wins a majority?

In past elections, there were only two closely competing candidates. One candidate emerged as a clear winner and second or third choices have never been counted.

With more candidates in the fray, and three candidates with significant support, analysts say there is a real possibility that no one candidate secures the required 50 percent majority. This might stretch the vote count to longer than usual.