By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-11-15 09:20:26 | Updated at 2024-11-15 12:05:00
2 hours ago
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake thanked voters on Friday for delivering his leftist coalition a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections that repudiated establishment parties blamed for triggering an economic crisis.
Dissanayake, a self-avowed Marxist, swept September presidential elections on a promise to combat corruption and recover stolen assets, two years after a slow-motion financial crash imposed widespread hardships on the island nation.
His decision to immediately call polls and secure parliamentary backing for his agenda was vindicated on Friday, with his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition taking at least 159 seats in the 225-member assembly, exceeding a two-thirds majority.
“Thank you to all who voted for a renaissance,” Dissanayake said in a brief statement on social media platform X.
The coalition had a monumental 61.5 per cent of the vote while opposition leader Sajith Premadasa’s party was well behind with only 17.6 per cent.
