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Friday Apr 19, 2024
Saturday, 16 November 2019 00:20 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Chandani Kirinde
Nearly 16 million voters will go to the polls today to elect a new president with election officials expecting a high turnout of over 80%.
Voting will commence at 7 a.m. and will end at 5 p.m. while counting of postal votes will commence by 6 p.m., officials said. Postal votes can be expected around midnight today, they said.
The EC requested voters to head to their polling centres early and ensure that they take a valid form of identification, which is mandatory for voting. These include the National Identity Card (NIC), valid driver’s licence or passport, Government pensioners ID card, elders ID card, or the clergy/priest ID card issued by the Department of Registration of Persons.
Voting will be held in 12,845 polling centres across the country with around 400,000 election officials on duty and over 60,000 police personnel deployed to maintain law and order. Over 8,000 Civil Defence Force (CDF) personnel, too, will assist Police on election duty. Counting will be done at 1,550 centres.
Close to one million new voters are eligible to vote at today’s Election compared to the 2015 Presidential poll. In the January 2015 Presidential Election, 15,044,490 were registered to vote but this has climbed to 15,992,096 in the 2018 electoral resister. Nearly 82% of registered voters cast their votes at the last Presidential Election.
Today’s Election will be a close fight between the two leading candidates, namely National Democratic Front’s (NDF) Sajith Premadasa and Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Premadasa will cast his vote in Hambantota, the district he represents in Parliament, while Rajapaksa will vote in Nugegoda, the area of his residence.
Several other candidates, including National People’s Power (NPP) candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake and former Army Commander Mahesh Senanayake, who is contesting through the National People’s Movement (NPM), too, have carried out high profile campaigns and have caught the attention of voters.
Thirty-five candidates are contesting today’s Election, the highest number since the first Presidential Election held in 1982.
This is the first Election to be held after the enactment of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution under which the term of office of the new President will be limited to five years. It is also the first time that an incumbent President is not seeking re-election.
Outgoing President Maithripala Sirisena won the 2015 Election with 51. 28% of the vote (6,217,162) –nearly 500,000 votes more than his closest rival, Mahinda Rajapaksa.
