New Delhi: Sri Lanka is voting today in the second national election in as many months.
The snap parliamentary election was called by the new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the South Asian island’s first leftist leader after he won polls on a promise to combat graft and recover the country’s stolen assets.
Dissanayake’s party is widely tipped to sweep Thursday’s parliamentary vote with analysts saying the opposition is in disarray, according to AFP.
The 55-year-old leader is seeking a two-thirds majority in the 225-member legislature to press ahead with reforms after the country’s economic meltdown in 2022, when the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted.
Polls for 17.1 million voters choosing between 8,800 candidates, opened at 7 am (0130 GMT) on Thursday and will close at 4 pm, with initial results expected on Friday.
Dissanayake’s JVP, or the People’s Liberation Front, is the main constituent of the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition of professionals seeking to form the next government.
The NPP held just three seats in the outgoing assembly.
Dissanayake had been an MP for nearly 25 years and was briefly an agriculture minister, but he distanced himself from traditional politicians accused of leading the country to its worst economic crisis two years ago.
His JVP party led two insurrections in 1971 and 1987, leading to the loss of at least 80,000 lives, but Dissanayake took power peacefully in elections on September 21.