Elections in Sri Lanka: 2024 Parliamentary Elections

Sri Lanka will hold parliamentary elections on November 14, 2024. The last parliamentary elections were held in August 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who assumed office on September 23, 2024, dissolved Parliament the following day. Gazette No. 2403/13 declared the date of elections and the period for nominations, and fixed November 21, 2024, as the date for the new Parliament to meet. Article 70(1) of Sri Lanka’s Constitution allows the President to dissolve Parliament and call for elections at any time after the Parliament has completed a minimum term of two years and six months.  Furthermore, Section 10 of the Parliamentary Elections Act No. 1 of 1981 (as amended) gives the President authority to fix the nomination period and the date of elections.

Dissolving Parliament immediately was one of the commitments that Dissanayake made during his campaign, emphasizing that a new government would be required to reshape the political landscape of Sri Lanka. 

The parliamentary elections of 2024 will be a decisive one for Sri Lanka, which elected a new president in September. The new president represents a party that held only three seats in the previous Parliament. This election will see non-traditional alliances fielding candidates across the island. Domestic and international observers have been accredited to carry out long- and short-term observation of the election. 

The upcoming parliamentary elections are crucial to establish a mandate for the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, which President Dissanayake represents. Established as an alliance of 21 political parties in 2019, the NPP has served one parliamentary term with only three seats: two directly elected members and one national list member. President Dissanayake campaigned and won the election on an anti-corruption mandate and a promise to install a more transparent and accountable government in Sri Lanka. The election of President Dissanayake is seen as the culmination of protests in 2022 that challenged the status quo of Sri Lanka’s politics.  Without the support of a parliamentary majority, passing most of the structural and policy changes promised by President Dissanayake and his supporters will become challenging. Dissanayake’s immediate call for an election is seen as a strategic move to establish control in Parliament while he enjoys momentum from his electoral victory. A parliamentary majority will also help the president establish a full cabinet.

The upcoming election may see a majority of new faces in Parliament, especially among a number of long-serving government representatives, including former President Ranil Wickremesinghe,  having decided not to contest.

The upcoming elections will reflect a shift from Sri Lanka’s traditional political parties and alliances toward newer ones. The National People’s Power (NPP) alliance was established in 2019 with 21 member groups, led by the People’s Liberation Front, or Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The NPP alliance consists of political parties, youth organizations, women’s groups, trade unions, and civil society organizations. The JVP has Marxist-Leninist roots and was a revolutionary movement that led two insurrections in 1971 and from 1987 to 1989. President Dissanayake is a longtime member of the JVP, having joined as a student activist. Another leading alliance is the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), led by former opposition leader and presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa. Some candidates within the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, one of the major Muslim political parties, are joining the SJB.

Separate from the SJB, which is a breakaway faction of the United National Party (UNP), some members of the UNP  will contest under the banner of the New Democratic Front alliance, under which former President Wickremesinghe contested the presidential election. Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the party of former presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, will also field candidates, although neither will contest the election. The Tamil National Alliance will contest only in Jaffna district. In total, 8,821 candidates across the country are contesting through dozens of political parties and independent groups for the 2024 parliamentary elections. 

Of the 225 seats, 196 members of Parliament (MPs) are directly elected from 22 multi-member electoral districts  and 29 MPs are indirectly elected through a national list through an open-list proportional system with multi-member districts. The Election Commission of Sri Lanka determines the allocation of seats proportional to the voting population of each electoral district. The largest allocations are in Gampaha and Colombo, with 19 and 18 seats, respectively. Colombo and Vanni districts now have one seat less than the 2020 seat allocation while Gampaha and Kalutara have each gained one seat.  

The 196 seats in the 22 multi-member districts are allocated based on the percentage of votes that a political party or independent group received in the district. The winning party in the district is entitled to a “bonus” seat. As outlined in Article 99 of the Constitution, each voter marks an X next to the name of one party or independent group in his or her electoral district. Individual candidates are assigned serial numbers based on the alphabetical order of names (as listed in Sinhala), and voters may select up to three candidates within the political party or independent group by marking an X over their serial numbers on the ballot. A party or group must also obtain more than 5 percent of the vote in the district to gain a seat. If it does not meet the 5 percent threshold, the votes for that party or group count will be eliminated from the count at the district level but will still be counted towards seats at the national level.

The remaining 29 seats, part of one nationwide constituency, are allocated in proportion to the share of national votes received by political parties or independent groups. As per Article 99A of the Constitution, a political party or independent group may determine who is selected for these additional seats from either its national list or any of the candidate lists it uses at the district level, regardless of the number of votes that the candidate receives. However, there have been instances in which persons who were not nominated for the national list at the time of the election were later appointed to Parliament to fill vacancies. Some of those appointments have been challenged in the Supreme Court, which has not rendered a conclusive decision on the constitutionality of such outside appointments. 

The Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL) is the independent body that oversees the conduct of presidential, parliamentary, provincial, and local elections, as well as referenda, in the country, ensuring they are free and fair. Its mandate is found in Article 104B of the Constitution. The president appoints the five members of the ECSL, as recommended by the Constitutional Council. The members of the current commission were appointed between July 2023 and January 2024. 

The commissioner general of elections is the head of the Elections Secretariat. The commissioner general, along with ECSL staff, is responsible for the administration of elections. The six divisions of the secretariat manage operations throughout the ECSL’s 25 district offices. The duties of the secretariat include registering voters, managing electoral rolls, ensuring compliance with election laws, and handling logistics on Election Day. The secretariat operates from ECSL headquarters in Rajagiriya, Colombo. 

In addition to its mandate to oversee elections, the ECSL prepares and revises the electoral register, secures the enforcement of electoral laws, regulates the use of state resources during elections, provides guidelines for print and electronic media on election reporting, and regulates campaign expenditures per the Regulation of Election Expenditure Act No. 3 of 2023. The ECSL is answerable to Parliament. 

It is the duty of the ECSL to ensure that all citizens exercise their franchise in secret and without intimidation. The ECSL also conducts voter education and creates a level playing field for all candidates. 

There are no reserved seats or other special provisions for women in Parliament. Key electoral stakeholders, including women’s groups and Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs, have repeatedly advocated for political parties to provide opportunities for women candidates in the elections, but no law mandates this measure. The percentage of women parliamentarians in the eighth (2015–2020) and ninth (2020–2024) parliaments have been among the lowest in the world, with only 5.7 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively – and dropping to just 4.4 percent after the departure of two women in 2024. Furthermore, only one woman served in former President Wickremesinghe’s cabinet of 22 ministers, and no women served as state ministers. The newly appointed interim government of President Dissanayake appointed a woman, the National People’s Power alliance’s national list member Harini Amarasuriya, as prime minister. 

The Election Commission of Sri Lanka maintains a continuous voter list that it updates every four months to add voters who reach 18 years of age. An annual door-to-door manual enumeration updates the voter registry. Online registration has also been made possible. 

As of the latest update of the voter list, dated July 8, 2024, 17,140,354 voters are registered in Sri Lanka. The smallest of the 22 electoral districts is Vanni, with 306,081 voters; the largest is Gampaha, with 1,881,129 voters. Colombo district has 1,765,351 voters. 

Vote counting and tabulation are carried out in three stages at counting centers. In the first stage, the chief counting officer and counting staff appointed by the Election Commission of Sri Lanka count the number of ballot papers in each box. In the second stage, the chief counting officer and counting staff sort and count the ballot papers according to the votes cast in favor of each party or group in the electoral district. In the third stage, candidate preferences are counted to determine the total number of votes that each candidate in the electoral district received. Returning officers, through assistant returning officers, will direct chief counting officers and counting staff to begin counting votes. Historically, vote counting and tabulation were conducted on Election Day after the closing of polls and through the night. However, in 2020, due to COVID precautions, vote counting started the day after the election.

Upon the approval of the Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL), results will be announced in two stages: first the vote counts according to contested political parties and then the counts of preferences received by each candidate. Results will be announced first for each polling area and later for the entire electoral district.  The ECSL chairman will announce the nationwide results. In the past, results have typically been announced as early as the night of Election Day. In 2020, they were announced around 3 a.m. two days following the election.

• Election Commission of Sri Lanka
• Parliament of Sri Lanka
• President of Sri Lanka
• Supreme Court of Sri Lanka
• Constitution of Sri Lanka
• Parliamentary Elections Act

For nearly two decades, IFES has worked with the Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL) and local civil society partners to promote electoral integrity and democratic rights, and accessible elections. IFES’ current programming is carried out with support from the United States Agency for International Development and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. IFES’ programming supports the ECSL in responding to emerging electoral threats; safeguarding democratic principles; and building the leadership capacity of women, youth, and people with disabilities and enhancing the inclusion of these historically marginalized groups in the electoral process.

These FAQs reflect decisions made by the Election Commission of Sri Lanka as of October 24, 2024, to the best of our knowledge. This document does not represent any International Foundation for Electoral Systems policy or technical recommendations. 

This paper is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The information herein is provided by the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or DFAT.