The ruling party of Rajapaksa brothers Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna dashed towards a landslide victory securing 146 out of 225 seats in the parliamentary elections held recently amidst the Wuhan virus pandemic. The party can count on atleast 5 other allies in the legislature.
The opposition party of Ranil Wickremesinghe was reduced to just 1 seat from 106 with the former Prime Minister losing his constituency. Sajith Premadesa’s party which was split from Wickremesinghe’s party came a distant second with 53 seats. The Tamil National Alliance walked away with just 10 seats from the earlier 16. A left party which earlier had 6 seats was reduced to 3.
The ‘super majority’ is required to carry out the promised constitutional changes. The Rajapaksas had promised to roll back the limit on President’s powers introduced by the previous administration.
Even as results were coming, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi called Mahinda Rajapaksa to congratulate for the landslide victory. PM Modi said that he looks forward to advance all areas of bilateral cooperation and take the relationship between the two countries newer heights.
Thank you, Prime Minister @PresRajapaksa! It was a pleasure to speak to you. Once again, many congratulations. We will work together to further advance all areas of bilateral cooperation and to take our special ties to ever newer heights. https://t.co/123ahoxlMo
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 6, 2020
The parliamentary elections were twice postponed due to the Wuhan virus pandemic.
The Rajapaksas rode on the nationalistic wave that took over the island following the Easter bombings by radical Muslim terrorists that killed 279 people.