The voter turnout in the Sri Lanka presidential election on Saturday is estimated to be around 75 per cent, according to an official.
Director General Elections Saman Sri Ratnayaka announced that the voter turnout in the presidential election is expected to be 75 per cent, which would be lower than the 83 per cent voter turnout recorded in the previous presidential election held in November 2019.
The polls were held from 7 am to 4 pm local time at over 13,400 polling stations at 22 electoral districts.
Over 17 million registered voters were expected to vote in the election which had the highest number of candidates with 38 in the fray.
Earlier in the day, polling concluded with no violence or security breaches reported anywhere from all 22 electoral districts in the crucial presidential elections, the island nation's first since its worst economic meltdown in 2022.
The election officials said everyone who had entered the polling station by 4 pm was allowed to vote beyond the deadline.
The counting of postal votes commenced immediately after the voting closed at 4 pm, officials said.
Postal votes were cast by government employees mostly election officials, military and police. The postal voting was conducted four days earlier.
After postal votes are counted, “at 6 pm, we would like to start normal counting,” Colombo City Deputy Election Commissioner MKSKK Bandaramapa said earlier in the day.
The election saw the deployment of nearly 8,000 polls observers local and foreign. This included 116 international observers from the EU, Commonwealth, Asian network of elections and seven from the south Asian countries.
The People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), the leading local group, deployed 4,000 local observers.
The election will be a test for incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe who has claimed credit for putting the country on the road to economic recovery.
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