Voting begins in Sri Lanka's parliamentary election

Colombo: The election of 225 members to the Sri Lankan parliament began on Thursday, with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake aiming for a majority. In response to demands for a new political culture free from corruption and misappropriation of public funds, President Dissanayake is running for a majority to lead the sovereign debt-defaulted country.

This would be the first major test of the popularity of the ruling party, National People's Power, led by President Dissanayake.

Samagi Jana Sandanaya led by Sajith Premadasa, the Sri Lanka Podujana Party of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the New Democratic Front made up breakaway legislators backing former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and minority parties in the North are seeking seats.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the outgoing President who lost to Dissanayake in last month's presidential election, is not contesting a parliamentary election for the first time since 1977.

The Rajapaksa brothers -- Mahinda, Gotabaya, Chamal, and Basil -- will not contest the parliamentary election after decades-long representation.

Scores of ministers and deputies from the past regime have opted out of the race.

President Dissanayake, who was elected on September 21, has called for a strong Parliament mandate for him to eliminate corruption and punish the past leaders who would be proven to have misappropriated public funds.

The polls will see the election of 196 members through voting in 22 electoral districts and 29 members through the national list, according to the number of total votes political parties and independent groups get in the election.

The voting started at 7 a.m. local time and will go until 4 p.m. More than 17.1 million voters are eligible to cast their votes.

The new Parliament will be convened on November 21.

The elected parliamentarians are expected to be declared by November 15 (Friday) if the counting process goes smoothly, Election Commission officials have said.

This will be the first parliamentary election since Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis when the island nation declared sovereign default in mid-April 2022, its first since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. Almost civil-war-like conditions and months of public protests led to the fleeing of the then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

With inputs from IANS