Sri Lanka supports Dissanayake's reform agenda by giving the NPP a historic supermajority.
The JVP alliance gains cross-ethnic support and reduces conventional parties to a single digit as it moves from southern strongholds to Tamil north.'
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and its coalition, the National People's Power (NPP), have secured a two-thirds majority in parliament in Sri Lanka.
This marks a significant shift in the country's political landscape, as the JVP, which has never been in power before, has often advocated for common people's rights and claimed to be led by communist ideals.
The NPP-led coalition has gained an unprecedented super-majority in the tenth parliament, with the NPP expected to gain 160 seats, including those allocated through proportional representation.
The largest Tamil party, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), is expected to secure six seats, while the New Democratic Front, led by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, is expected to secure four.
The former President Mahinda Rajapaksa's party, which had a majority in the 2020 election, has been reduced to two seats.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has appealed for a two-thirds majority in parliament to implement his agenda, including economic challenges, anti-poverty programs, government waste reduction, and corruption control.
However, the coalition has not made significant disruptive moves, such as arresting former ministers or political heavyweights.
A senior diplomat in Colombo stated that the JVP/NPP has no longer had the luxury of inaction due to the coalition's two-thirds majority, as they are now in a wait-and-watch mode, waiting for the parliamentary elections to conclude and the bureaucracy to adjust to the new politicians.
Tamils in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, voted for the JVP, a Sinhala-Buddhist party, for the first time in the nation's history. This marked a significant shift in Sri Lanka's politics, as the NPP won three seats in traditionally hardline Tamil areas.
Despite over 593,000 registered voters, only 325,000 showed up at booths, with nearly 10% of the votes rejected due to the complicated voting process.
Anura Dissanayake's surprise presidential victory in Sri Lanka has been compared to parliamentary control.
The ballot paper lists all political parties at the top, with individual candidates indicated by numbers without names. Voters must select a party and vote for a set of numbers on the paper.
The NPP secured two seats in the Vanni district after winning it, and made significant gains in Colombo, a traditional UNP and SJB stronghold.
The NPP won Trincomalee, a district expected to be out of reach for Tamil political parties, while the SJB and ITAK received one seat each.
The National Party of Sri Lanka (NPP) made significant gains in the Hill Country, where Tamil plantation workers reside, with the NPP winning five out of eight seats in Nuwara Eliya.
In the Southern Province, the party of former Presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa was nearly wiped out, with the NPP securing 18 seats, while the SJB won two and the SLPP just two.
The only exception was Batticaloa, where the ITAK won three seats, while the NPP and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress won one each.
Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, alias Pillayan, failed to win his seat in the district. The election was marked by a massive number of candidates in the minority-dominated north and east of Sri Lanka, with about 2,000 candidates for 28 seats.
The NPP's voter turnout in the Philippines reached 65%, the lowest in almost a decade and a half. In the presidential election, turnout was around 80%. The party polled higher than all other political parties in all but one electoral district.
By 7 AM on November 15, the NPP surpassed the 5.63 million votes of its candidate, Dissanayake, in the presidential election. By 9 AM, the party crossed the 6 million vote mark, with nearly 90% of the votes counted. Over 17 million voters were eligible to vote at 13,421 polling booths.
The Sri Lankan National Party (NPP) has faced a wave election where many former MPs and hopefuls lost their seats, proving that individual appeal did not matter.
Former Ministers Johnston Fernando, S.M. Chandrasena, Duminda Dissanayake, Pavithradevi Wanniarachchi, Premitha Bandara Tennakoon, Rohana Dissanayaka, Kanchana Wijesekera, Mahinda Amaraweera, Manusha Nanayakkara, Premalal Jayasekara, and Ramesh Pathirana all lost their seats.
Sri Lanka's former cricket captain, T.M. Dilshan, lost his first attempt to enter parliament.
The NPP, formed in 2019, has no excuse not to deliver, with promises to abolish the executive presidency and scrutinize its approach toward the USD 2.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout.
The government will also have to balance its relations with India and China as geopolitical tensions become a reality in the region. The JVP considers China its friend and has extensive contacts with the Chinese Communist Party. An Indian diplomat said it was possible to do business with the new government because the leaders of the coalition are "grounded" and "practical" leaders.
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