{"id":105276,"date":"2020-08-05T15:12:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T22:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105276"},"modified":"2020-08-05T15:12:37","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T22:12:37","slug":"sri-lankans-vote-for-new-parliament-in-big-numbers-despite-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/05\/sri-lankans-vote-for-new-parliament-in-big-numbers-despite-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lankans vote for new parliament in big numbers despite pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy TRTWorld<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Sri Lankans vote in large numbers despite the Covid-19 pandemic as the ruling Rajapaksa brothers sought to expand their mandate through the virus-delayed parliamentary polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni0.trtworld.com\/w960\/h540\/q75\/85187_20200805SKAVOTE_1596656276045.JPG\" alt=\"A health official takes the temperature of election officials who arrive with ballot boxes from polling station to a counting center, after the voting ended during the country's parliamentary election in Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 5, 2020.\"\/><figcaption> A health official takes the temperature of election officials who arrive with ballot boxes from polling station to a counting center, after the voting ended during the country&#8217;s parliamentary election in Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 5, 2020. (Reuters) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lankans have voted to elect a new Parliament that is expected to give strong support to the powerful and popular Rajapaksa brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected last November after projecting himself as the only leader who could secure the country after the Daesh-inspired bombings of churches and hotels on Easter Sunday that killed 269 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His older brother, charismatic former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is seeking a majority of the 225 seats in Parliament to return as prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least four members of the family were running in Wednesday&#8217;s parliamentary election, and strong support for the Rajapaksas&#8217; party could add to their political dynasty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sri Lanka Attacks: At least 290 people killed in Sri Lankan blasts\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-2iTOc2pzm4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.trtworld.com\/asia\/sri-lanka-orders-fresh-probe-into-easter-suicide-bombings-30016\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sri Lanka orders fresh probe into Easter suicide bombings<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Largely peaceful<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Police spokesman Priyantha Weerasuriya said the voting, which ended at 5 p.m., was largely peaceful and that police officers were escorting the ballot boxes to the counting centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Counting starts on Thursday and the final results are expected on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 16 million people were eligible to vote to elect 196 lawmakers, with the rest being named from a national list according to the number of votes received by each party or independe nt group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>READ MORE:&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.trtworld.com\/asia\/sri-lanka-president-gotabaya-swears-in-brother-mahinda-as-new-pm-31556\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sri Lanka President Gotabaya swears in brother Mahinda as new PM<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Covid-19 delay<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The election was originally scheduled for April but was twice postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka has largely contained the spread of the virus, with 2,834 confirmed cases, including 11 deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Health measures were put in place at polling booths with social distancing.<br>Voters were asked to bring their own pens to mark their ballots, or use disinfected pens provided at voting stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Economic woes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even with a super-majority, the incoming administration faces challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The economy had scarcely recovered from the blow of the 2019 bombings before the coronavirus epidemic struck, prompting lockdowns that have still not been fully lifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still,&nbsp;Sri Lanka&nbsp;appears to have escaped the worst of the contagion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Test result figures are considered dubious by opposition parties, but authorities have reported just 11 deaths from fewer than 3,000 cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They will win by a huge margin but the economic and social problems post-Covid-19 will be huge,&#8221; said political analyst Kusal Perera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Asian Development Bank expects the island&#8217;s economy to shrink by an unprecedented 6.1 percent this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mahinda is expected to lean heavily on China for economic assistance, as he did during a decade as president until 2015, but also increasingly on neighbouring India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.trtworld.com\/asia\/sri-lanka-makes-strong-gains-in-the-human-development-index-32165\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sri Lanka makes strong gains in the Human Development Index<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy TRTWorld Sri Lankans vote in large numbers despite the Covid-19 pandemic as the ruling Rajapaksa brothers sought to expand their mandate through the virus-delayed parliamentary polls. Sri Lankans have voted to elect a new Parliament that is expected to give strong support to the powerful and popular Rajapaksa brothers. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}