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The President of Sri Lanka is directly elected by voters for a five-year term. [1] Below is a list of presidential elections in Sri Lanka, including the number of votes obtained by each candidate and voter turnout. [2]
| Election | Winning candidate | Runner-up candidate | Others | Total votes | Turnout | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Votes | % | |||||
| 1982 | J. R. Jayewardene | UNP | 3,450,811 | 52.91% | Hector Kobbekaduwa | SLFP | 2,548,438 | 39.07% | 522,898 | 8.02% | 6,522,147 | 81.06% | ||
| 1988 | Ranasinghe Premadasa | UNP | 2,569,199 | 50.43% | Sirimavo Bandaranaike | SLFP | 2,289,860 | 44.95% | 235,719 | 4.63% | 5,094,778 | 55.32% | ||
| 1994 | Chandrika Kumaratunga | SLFP | 4,709,205 | 62.28% | Srima Dissanayake | UNP | 2,715,283 | 35.91% | 137,038 | 1.81% | 7,561,526 | 70.47% | ||
| 1999 | Chandrika Kumaratunga | SLFP | 4,312,157 | 51.12% | Ranil Wickremesinghe | UNP | 3,602,748 | 42.71% | 520,849 | 6.17% | 8,435,754 | 73.31% | ||
| 2005 | Mahinda Rajapaksa | SLFP | 4,887,152 | 50.29% | Ranil Wickremesinghe | UNP | 4,706,366 | 48.43% | 123,521 | 1.28% | 9,717,039 | 73.73% | ||
| 2010 | Mahinda Rajapaksa | SLFP | 6,015,934 | 57.88% | Sarath Fonseka | NDF | 4,173,185 | 40.14% | 204,494 | 1.97% | 10,393,613 | 74.50% | ||
| 2015 | Maithripala Sirisena | NDF | 6,217,162 | 51.28% | Mahinda Rajapaksa | SLFP | 5,768,090 | 47.58% | 138,200 | 1.14% | 12,123,452 | 81.52% | ||
| 2019 | Gotabaya Rajapaksa | SLPP | 6,924,255 | 52.25% | Sajith Premadasa | NDF | 5,564,239 | 41.99% | 764,005 | 5.76% | 13,252,499 | 83.72% | ||
| 2024 | Anura Kumara Dissanayake | NPP | 5,634,915 [a] | 42.30% | Sajith Premadasa | SJB | 4,363,035 [a] | 32.75% | 3,321,666 [a] | 24.95% | 13,319,616 | 79.46% | ||
| 5,740,179 [b] | 55.89% [c] | 4,530,902 [d] | 44.11% [c] | — | ||||||||||
 Others |  Others |
Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists are in a predetermined, fixed order by the time of the election and gives the general voter no influence at all on the position of the candidates placed on the party list.
Sri Lanka elects on the national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. Sri Lanka has a multi-party system, with two dominant political parties. All elections are administered by the Election Commission of Sri Lanka.
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The National People's Power (NPP) or Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB) is a centre-left to left-wing political party in Sri Lanka. It was formed as a coalition of left-wing and progressive parties that aimed to present an alternative to the existing political establishment. The NPP emerged as a response to the perceived failures of traditional parties in the Sri Lankan political system. It is the current ruling party of Sri Lanka, having won the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections, and is currently the largest party in the Parliament of Sri Lanka. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is the current leader of the party and Nihal Abeysinghe is the general secretary.
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