After November Parliamentary polls, Sri Lanka to face its third major election before 2024 ends

Colombo: Amid continued economic troubles, Sri Lanka is to witness two more island-wide major elections before the end of the year, months after the recently concluded Presidential polls.

The parliamentary election is scheduled for November 14 following the presidential election that was held on September 21 in the cash-strapped nation. Third would be the local council elections in December.

Meanwhile, a one-off election scheduled for the southern province’s Elpitiya local council will be held on October 26.

Sri Lanka’s independent Election Commission, in a statement late on Wednesday night, said arrangements would be made to hold the local election immediately after the parliamentary polls following the Supreme Court order of August 22.

As per the order, the elections to 340 local councils are to be held between 30-35 days from November 14, meaning that it would be scheduled for the third week of December.

The court ruled that the local council election should have been held at the earlier scheduled date of March 9, 2023, and not holding it was a violation of fundamental rights.

The then president and finance minister Ranil Wickremesinghe blamed the dire financial state of the country following the 2022 economic crisis and said it was not possible to hold the election.

The decision to not hold was announced despite the election commission making preliminary arrangements and had accepted nominations too.

The court said that Wickremesinghe, as the finance minister, was guilty of rights violation by not allocating the necessary funds required to hold the election.

The then opposition had accused Wickremesinghe of not holding the election for the fear of losing.

On September 23, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party's broader front, the National People’s Power (NPP), as sworn in as Sri Lanka's ninth president. He signed the special gazette notification ordering the dissolution of parliament on September 24.

Sri Lanka is currently negotiating for the fourth tranche of the $2.9 billion four-year facility clinched by the Wickremesinghe administration in March 2023.

The island nation has already received three tranches of about $360 million each and the third review for the release of the fourth tranche is expected to happen in Washington at the end of this month.