{"id":93613,"date":"2019-10-06T16:57:09","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T23:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93613"},"modified":"2019-10-06T16:57:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T23:57:09","slug":"nomination-day-battle-lines-drawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/06\/nomination-day-battle-lines-drawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Nomination Day: Battle lines drawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sugeeswara Senadhira <\/strong>Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

By this afternoon (7 October), the final list of candidates for the 16 November presidential election will be known. As Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya said earlier, nearly 30 candidates have placed their deposits.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is a foregone conclusion that the main battle will be between two top candidates, while the next two or three candidates will not be able to get even one million votes collectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 All other motley crowd of applicants – most of who are filing nominations for 15 minutes of fame, and a few seconds of television ops – will lose their deposits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


While Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Podujana Peramuna candidate finally got over legal hurdles, and Sajith Premadasa wrested the UNP candidacy after months of internecine warfare in the Party, the battle line has been clearly defined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The presidential election race will heat up from today. The outcome of the 2019 presidential and 2020 parliamentary election will determine whether Sri Lanka renews its forward progress on the post-civil war homework of reconciliation and accountability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results matter not only in terms of Sri Lanka’s long-term stability, especially the relationship between the Sinhala majority and the country’ minorities, but also regarding Sri Lanka’s geostrategic position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Most of the candidates are from recognised political parties. But most of those political parties have very few party members or activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Although there are several minor party candidates and independent candidates, the presidential Contest is essentially a two-person affair. Alliance-building will be part of the process. The coming weeks are bound to be both messy and interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Sri Lanka has a proud history of elections, with 88 years experience in adult franchise, as the voting rights were given to elect the State Council in 1931. With this maturity, the average Sri Lankan voter is not willing to waste his\/her vote, by casting it for a candidate who has no chance of winning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Hence, in every presidential election, about 85 per cent to 90 per cent of the votes were divided between the first two candidates, and on every election the winner managed to get over 50 per cent, to ensure verdict in the first count, without resorting to a count of second preference of votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In the first presidential election of 1982, President J.R. Jayewardene received 3.4 million votes (52.9 per cent) and the main rival, Hector Kobbekaduwa polled 2.5 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third candidate, Rohana Wijeweera of the JVP could poll only 273,428 votes or a mere 4 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Second presidential
election<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


In the second presidential election in 1988, then Prime Minister, Ranasinghe Premadasa won by polling 2.5 million votes (50.43 per cent).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 He defeated Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who polled 2.2 million votes. The third candidate, Ossie Abeygunasekera could get only 235,719 votes. In 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga polled a record 62.28 per cent or 4.7 million votes, defeating Srimathi Dissanayake, who polled 2.7 million votes. The other four candidates could collectively get only 137,038 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


There were 13 candidates for the 1999 presidential election. The last ten candidates got less than 180,000 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 While Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga won for the second time, with 4.3 million votes (51.12 per cent), the UNP’s Ranil Wickremesinghe polled 3.6 million. The third candidate, Nandana Gunathilake of JVP polled 344,173 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In 2005, too there were 13 candidates and 11 of them got less than 2 per cent of the total. Mahinda Rajapaksa received 4.8 million (50.29 per cent) and Ranil Wickremesinghe polled 4.7 million (48.43 per cent).<\/p>\n\n\n\n


There were a record 22 candidates in the 2010 presidential election and Mahinda Rajapaksa romped home with 6.1 million (57.88 per cent) votes, defeating Sarath Fonseka, who polled 4.1 million (40.15 per cent). The other 20 candidates lost their deposits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In 2015, Maithripala Sirisena polled 6.2 million (51.28 per cent) votes, defeating then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who polled 5.7 million (47.58 per cent). There were 19 candidates, and barring the first two, others could not cross even the 40,000 mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The highest number of votes polled by a third candidate in any presidential election was JVP’s Nandana Gunathilake, who polled 344,174 votes in 1999. However, he could not even get 10 per cent of the 4.3 million votes polled by the winning candidate, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Upcoming presidential election<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


In the upcoming presidential election, there are at least two formidable candidates, in addition to the two main candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Both of them, former Army Commander, General Mahesh Senanayake and JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake hope to do better than the other losing candidates in the past seven presidential elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is highly doubtful if any of the minor candidates, barring the first two, could cross the half million mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The above results clearly show that the voters in Sri Lanka have no faith in third candidates, even if they have sound principles and impeccable characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The voters select the candidates backed by the main two national political parties – SLFP and UNP. However, this time, there is a changed scenario, as the Podujana Peramuna has emerged as a formidable national Political Party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sugeeswara Senadhira Courtesy Ceylon Today By this afternoon (7 October), the final list of candidates for the 16 November presidential election will be known. As Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya said earlier, nearly 30 candidates have placed their deposits.\u00a0 However, it is a foregone conclusion that the main battle will be between two top […]<\/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-93613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93613","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=93613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}