The 10th Parliamentary Election of Sri Lanka in 2024 : An analysis on its results

Abstract

Elections are the core aspect in selecting representatives of peoples in a country. In this sense, presidential election and the parliamentary election are the two key elections in Sri Lanka. In the last presidential election of the country, Anura Kumara Dissanayake of National People's Power party (NPP) was elected as the president and he dissolved the Parliament on 14th of September 2024 based on the power vested to him as the president. Hence the 10th parliamentary election was held on 14th of November 2024. In this election, NPP gained the victory with overwhelming majority. In parliamentary elections of Sri Lanka, it is the first time after 1977, a single party, NPP, won the election with 2/3 majority. Meanwhile, the popular parties like New Democratic Front (NDF), Samagi Jana Balavehaya (SJB), Sri Lanka Pothujana Peramuna (SLPP) and United National Party (UNP) found major decline in this election. NPP as a single party gained 159 seats in the election and became the ruling party in the Parliament, and Sajith Premadasa led SJB gained 40 seats and became the opposition party in the Parliament.  NPP gained 59% of votes and SJB got 24% of votes in the election. Whereas other ethnic political parties did not get results as previous elections and marked their decline in this election. Moreover, women representation had also increased in the Parliament by this election. The overwhelming victory of NPP ad a single party was caused by the economic crisis of the country and the related issues of previous government. This study is based on secondary data to the analysis