By Vishvanath
Sri Lanka goes to the polls on Saturday (21) to elect the ninth Executive President. All presidential elections are important, but tomorrow’s one could be considered more important than others, for it has come about amidst the country’s worst-ever economic crisis, and for the first time in history there are more than two formidable candidates in the fray.
Elections are times where astrologers and pollsters have a field day. There have been various predictions about the outcome of tomorrow’s election, but it is doubtful whether Sri Lankans take them seriously. Even the forecasts made by numerous pollsters in countries such as the US, the UK and India have been wide off the mark. So, one will have to wait until the official final result is announced by the Election Commission (EC) to see who the winner is.
It is widely believed that preferential votes will have to be counted to choose the next President because there are more than two formidable candidates unlike at previous elections, which were more or less two-horse races. The counting of preferences, if at all, will be a novel experience for Sri Lankans, who usually do not care to mark preference at presidential elections, where they vote by marking ‘X’ against the candidates of their choice. Hence the EC has focused on educating the public on how to vote and how votes including preferences are counted. More importantly, it has asked the public to remain patient in the event of a preferential vote count.
If it is found, after the first count of votes, that none of candidates has obtained more than 50% of the total number of valid votes, then the candidates other than the provisional winner and provisional the runner-up will be eliminated from the contest, and the preferences on their ballot papers, if any, will be counted. At this stage preferences are considered votes proper.
The counting of preferential votes begins with the ballot papers in the box assigned to the candidate who has polled the third highest number of votes and will go on until the votes polled by the last candidate are scrutinized for preferences. At this stage, the second and third preferences marked for the first two candidates will be counted as votes cast for them, and in situations where the second and third preferences have been marked on a ballot paper for the two remaining candidates, the vote will go to the person who has got the second preference.
After the conclusion of the counting of preferential votes, the candidate who has obtained the higher number of votes including preferences will be declared the winner. There is no requirement for him to secure more than 50% of the total number of valid votes, at this stage. In the extremely unlikely event of a tie, lots will be drawn, and the winning lot will be considered a vote for the winner, who will become the President. This process is not as complex as it is made out to be, but it is bound to be time-consuming, as all the ballots papers other than those in the boxes of the two remaining candidates have to be scrutinized. The possibility of several recounts cannot also be ruled out, as is our experience at the past presidential elections.
Sri Lanka is known for conspiracy theories, which abound, and in the case of a preferential vote count, there is the possibility of bogus claims being made during the interregnum between the results of the first round of counting and the conclusion of the counting of preferential votes. This country has its share of troublemakers. Sri Lanka’s unsuccessful presidential candidates usually do not concede defeat gracefully. They claim to be winners and even file court cases besides holding protests as we saw in 2010, when the UNP-led Opposition claimed their common candidate, Sarath Fonseka had won the presidency but the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa had stolen the election. Such a situation arose even in the US in 2020, when the then President Donald Trump insisted that the election had been stolen and was accused of instigating a mob invasion of the Capitol, during a special session to certify the final result of the presidential contest. Hence, the EC’s timely exhortation to the public to exercise patience. One can only hope that political leaders will act responsibly.
Besides the possibility of a novel experience and attendant issues, tomorrow’s presidential contest is characterized by a radical change that Sri Lanka’s political party system has undergone during the past decade or so.
The two main political parties that dominated the post-Independence Sri Lankan politics, the SLFP and the UNP, are in disarray and too weak both politically and electorally to face a presidential election under their own steam. The UNP leader and incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe is contesting as an independent candidate with the Gas Cylinder as his symbol, and some of those who claim to lead the SLFP have thrown in their lot with him, and their rivals in the party are supporting SJB leader Sajith Premadasa in the presidential fray. Former President Maithripala Sirisena, who took over the reins of the SLFP, has resigned as the party Chairman, and refused to endorse any of the presidential candidates. He is maintaining radio silence. The same goes for the JVP, whose leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake is contesting as the NPP candidate under the Compass symbol. The NPP has dissociated itself from the JVP’s Marxist ideology, and political analysts are of the view that the NPP finds itself in a liberal-socialist duality. The JVP old guard is reportedly resentful, but has not voiced its dissent openly. It will be interesting to see how the internal dynamics of the JVP-NPP coalition play out after tomorrow’s presidential election. In what was a radical departure from its history, the JVP did not display the pictures of Lenin and Marx at its May Day events this year.
Interestingly, only offshoots of the SLFP and the UNP—the SLPP and the SJB, respectively—are contesting the presidential election under their own symbols, and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka has lent its symbol, the Star, to the richest candidate in the contest, Dilith Jayaweera, of Sarvajana Balaya party.
Tomorrow’s presidential contest is expected to throw up some surprises, and what they will be is anybody’s guess. Nothing is so certain as the unexpected in politics, and all that one can do is to wait until the people have spoken.
