Voting Underway For Local Elections In Sri Lanka In First Electoral Test For Dissanayake Govt

<p>The polls opened in Sri Lanka on Monday for the delayed local council elections seen as a major electoral test for the ruling National People&rsquo;s Power (NPP) led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.</p>
<p>The voting started at 7 am and will continue till 4 pm. Over 17.1 million voters are eligible to vote to elect 8,287 members of 339 local government bodies at 13,759 polling stations, election officials said.</p>
<p>Over 75,000 candidates from 49 political parties and 257 independent groups are in the fray. The elected candidates will be appointed for a 4-year term.</p>
<p>This would be the first electoral test for the current government led by President Dissanayake since it won the presidential and parliamentary elections in the last quarter of 2024.</p>
<p>The last local elections were held in the country in 2018.</p>
<p>However, the next local elections were postponed due to political unrest caused by the economic crisis in 2022. The elections were postponed twice in 2023 even after the dates were announced by the election commission.</p>
<p>The then government’s decision not to hold the local election, citing a lack of finances amid the economic crisis, was challenged in court. The court ordered the early conduct of the poll.</p>
<p>Dissanayake narrowly won the September presidential election with just 42 per cent of the vote and then led his NPP to a resounding victory in the parliamentary election that followed in November.</p>
<p>The NPP, after winning the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2024, has been struggling to fulfil its key promises made during the elections.</p>
<p>Dissanayake, despite his pre-election pledges to revise the hard conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, has failed to deliver his promise and is continuing with the same austerity measures imposed by his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe.</p>
<p>The unique system of elections, in operation only for the second time, would see 60 per cent of local council members elected first past the post and 40 per cent elected based on proportional representation.</p>
<p>A minimum representation of 10 per cent for women and 25 per cent for youth is guaranteed within the system.</p>
<p>Dissanayake urged the voters to elect the NPP for a clean local government. During the election campaign, Dissanayake said that he would not release money for the councils won by the opposition. The comments drew criticism for exerting undue influence on the voters.</p>
<p>The divided opposition seemed disorganised, posing little real challenge to the ruling NPP, observers noted.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em><strong>(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)</strong></em></p>