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Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka between 23 July and 23 August 2029. The election may be held earlier under exceptional circumstances if the incumbent president, after completing four years of his first term, issues a proclamation requesting a fresh mandate from the electorate to seek a second term. [1] [2]
The 2024 presidential elections were a three-way contest between Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sajith Premadasa, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake. In the first vote count, no candidate secured a majority. Dissanayake led with 42% of the vote, followed by Premadasa with 33%, while incumbent president Wickremesinghe finished third with 17%. As no candidate achieved a majority, a second round of vote counting was held for the first time in Sri Lanka's history under its limited ranked voting system. At the conclusion of this preferential vote count, Dissanayake was declared the winner, securing 55.89% of the vote. He was inaugurated on 23 September 2024. [3]
During the 2024 presidential election campaign, both Dissanayake and Premadasa promised that, if elected, they would abolish the executive presidential system and return the country to a parliamentary democracy. This familiar pre-election pledge has been made by many political leaders in the past, yet none have fulfilled it. [4]
On 23 September 2024, National People's Power member and former parliamentarian Sunil Handunnetti informed the media that abolishing the executive presidency remains a priority for a government led by newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. [5] [6]
According to Article 30 of the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the President of Sri Lanka is elected for a five-year term. Article 31 states that a person who has been elected president twice is ineligible to contest for a third term due to term limits.
The article also specifies that the presidential election must be held no less than one month and no more than two months before the incumbent president's term expires.
However, if the incumbent president wishes to seek a fresh mandate and a second term, they may issue a proclamation calling for early elections. This can be done any time after completing four years of their first term. By doing so, the president requests a new election before the full five-year term is completed, allowing the electorate to decide whether the president should continue for a second term.
The president is elected through a system of limited ranked voting. Voters can express up to three ranked preferences for the presidency. If no candidate receives more than 50% of all valid votes in the first count, all candidates except the two who received the highest number of votes are eliminated. The second and third preference votes of the eliminated candidates are then redistributed to the remaining two candidates until one of them secures an outright majority. [1] [2]
This system remained unused until 2024. In every presidential election from 1982 to 2019, a candidate from one of the major parties or alliances consistently secured an outright majority in the first count. [3]
Sri Lanka is a unitary multi-party semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Sri Lanka is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers. Legislative power is vested in the Parliament. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The president of Sri Lanka is the head of state and head of government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The president is the chief executive of the union government and the commander-in-chief of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, in addition to their relation with the Prime minister and Government of Sri Lanka, have over time differed with the various constitutional documents since the creation of the office. The president appoints the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka who can command the confidence of the Parliament of Sri Lanka.
Ranil Wickremesinghe is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the ninth president of Sri Lanka from 2022 to 2024. Previously, he served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1993–1994, 2001–2004, 2015–2018, 2018-2019 and in 2022. He held several ministerial roles, including Minister of Finance, Minister of Defence, Minister of Technology and Minister of Women, Child Affairs and Social Empowerment. Wickremesinghe has led the United National Party (UNP) since 1994 and has been Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on six occasions.
The United National Party is a centre-right political party in Sri Lanka. The UNP has served as the country's ruling party, or as part of its governing coalition, for 38 of the country's 74 years of independence, including the periods 1947–1956, 1965–1970, 1977–1994, 2001–2004 and 2015–2019. The party also controlled the executive presidency from its formation in 1978 until 1994 and again from 2022 to 2024.
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.
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna is a leftist political party in Sri Lanka. The party was formerly a revolutionary movement and was involved in two armed uprisings against the government of Sri Lanka: once in 1971 (SLFP), and another in 1987–1989 (UNP). The motive for both uprisings was to establish a socialist state. Since then the JVP has entered mainstream democratic politics and has updated its ideology, abandoning some of its original Marxist policies such as the abolition of private property, and moderating its rhetoric. The JVP has been led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake since 2014.
Pakkiyaselvam Ariyanethiran is a Sri Lankan Tamil politician. He was a Member of Parliament from the Batticaloa District from 2004 to 2015, representing the Tamil National Alliance.
Sajith Premadasa is a Sri Lankan politician. He is the current Leader of the Opposition of Sri Lanka and a Member of Parliament for the Colombo District. He is the current leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake, commonly referred to by his initials AKD, is a Sri Lankan politician who has been the tenth and current president of Sri Lanka since 2024. Dissanayake is the first Sri Lankan president to be elected in a second round of vote counting, and the first elected president not from Sri Lanka's traditional political parties.
The New Democratic Front is a political alliance in Sri Lanka. It was formed as a political party in 1995 after Srimani Athulathmudali, widow of assassinated politician Lalith Athulathmudali, split from the Democratic United National Front.
First Lady of Sri Lanka refers to the wife of the President of Sri Lanka. In recent years the holders of the title have been formally or informally referred to by the title First Lady or First Lady of Sri Lanka, though there are no provisions for such in the constitution.
The Sri Lanka People's Front, commonly known by its Sinhalese name Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), is a political party in Sri Lanka. It was the ruling party in Sri Lanka from 2019 to 2022 and was the largest party in parliament from 2020 to 2024. Previously a minor political party known as the Sri Lanka National Front (SLNF) and Our Sri Lanka Freedom Front (OSLFF), it was relaunched in 2016 as the SLPP and the party became the base for members of the United People's Freedom Alliance loyal to its former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Rajapaksa family.
Presidential elections were held in Sri Lanka on 16 November 2019. Incumbent president Maithripala Sirisena did not run for a second term. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, was the candidate of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and was endorsed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Sajith Premadasa, son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa and deputy leader of the United National Party was the candidate of the ruling party.
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.
Indirect presidential elections were held in Sri Lanka on 20 July 2022 following the resignation of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa on 14 July. The president of Sri Lanka was elected by the Parliament in a secret ballot to decide who would complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa's term. Candidates were nominated in the Parliament on 19 July in advance of the election the following day.
Presidental elections were held in Sri Lanka on 21 September 2024. Incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe ran for re-election as an independent candidate, making him the first sitting president to run for re-election since Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015. Other prominent candidates included Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa, Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the NPP, and Namal Rajapaksa, son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Local elections have not been held in Sri Lanka since 2018. Elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2022, but were postponed to 2023 due to the worsening economic crisis and instability in the country, before being postponed again several times by the government of President Ranil Wickremesinghe. Currently, there is no official date scheduled for the elections.
Parliamentary elections were held in Sri Lanka on 14 November 2024 to elect 225 members to the new parliament. The 16th Parliament of Sri Lanka was dissolved on 24 September 2024. The submission of nominations for the election commenced on 4 October and concluded on 11 October 2024 at 12:00 SLST.
An indirect presidential election was held in the Parliament of Sri Lanka on 7 May 1993, following the assassination of president Ranasinghe Premadasa by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Colombo. The president of Sri Lanka was elected by the Parliament of Sri Lanka in a secret ballot to decide who would complete the remainder of Premadasa's term.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka no later than 21 February 2030. They will determine the composition of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, which determines the government.
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