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Main parties put a positive spin on how they performed at the elections
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Tilvin Silva addressing media
The National People’s Power (NPP) faced its first electoral test since taking office seven months ago at Tuesday’s local councils elections, which saw a dip in its popularity across the country with a drop in support in rural areas as well as in the North and East of the country.
The NPP won around 4.5 million votes or 43.26% of all votes cast, a drop from around 6.9 million votes or 61.5% in last November’s parliamentary elections.
In the presidential election of September 2024, the NPP’s candidate President Anura Kumara Dissanayke secured around 5.6 million votes or 42.31%.
A lack of enthusiasm around the local councils elections led to a drop in the percentage of voters who exercised their franchise, putting the total votes polled to 60% from around 69% who cast their votes in the 2024 general elections. While voting percentage is usually low in local government polls, it was nearly 80% in the LG election held in 2018 when the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) swept to power.
The NPP lost support in the North and East losing most of the councils to the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), a setback from the Party’s performance at the last general election where they won a majority of the electorates in the two districts.
In the Colombo polling district, the NPP took over 50% of the votes in Homagama, Maharagama, Kaduwela.Kotikawatta-Mulleriyawa and Kesbewa local authorities but fell below 50% in Kotte, Moratuwa, Kolonnawa, Colombo, and the Seetawaka local councils. The NPP also did well in most local authorities in the Gampaha district but could not get over 50% of the votes in the majority of the council’s in the Kalutara district.
The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) made gains in its vote base winning around 22% of the vote from 17.6% at the last general elections. The number of votes the party won rose to around 2.2 million from 1.7 million. The surprise bounce back was from the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) which increased its vote count from around 350,000 at last September/November elections to nearly a million, going from 3% to over 9% of the votes.
Smaller parties such as the Sarvajana Balaya also increased their vote base marginally while the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) also retained their vote base in several areas in which they contested.
Meanwhile the main parties have put a positive spin on how they performed at the elections which is likely to be followed by Provincial Council elections next year.
JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva said that although the party did not get a majority in all the councils, the NPP is the single largest party “We have won both numerically and morally in this election and will govern the councils ,” he said.
SJP leader Sajith Premadasa said that despite government threats of cutting funding to councils and other high handed actions, the voters have supported the SJB and thanked the voters for coming forward.
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