COLOMBO, Sri Lanka's Election Commission on Thursday said all necessary preliminary preparations have been completed for the presidential election to be held on September 21.
With more than 17 million registered voters in 22 electoral districts, the island nation is preparing for a presidential election, where 38 candidates are competing for the presidency.
“We have finalized all the preliminary arrangements and informed the concerned authorities about our readiness,” commission chairman RMAL Ratnayake said at a press conference here.
Ratnayake also spoke on the possible delay in declaring the results if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round of counting. He said that in such a situation the Commission will count the second and third preference votes.
"We will remove all the candidates ranked 3 to 38 and count the second and third preference votes cast for the candidates ranked first and second," he said.
Historically, all eight presidential elections since 1982 have declared a winner in the first round, with the leading candidate receiving more than 50 percent of the vote.
However, this year's election is expected to be a close contest due to the growing influence of the Marxist JVP party, which has emerged as a significant third force in the race.
Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe, opposition leader and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) politician Sajith Premadasa and Marxist JVP's Anura Kumara Dissanayake are the frontrunners.
The commission also announced that postal voting, which took place over the last four days, concluded on Thursday without any major incident.
More than 700,000 state officials on election duty applied for postal voting, with an estimated 80 percent turnout.
With more than 17 million registered voters in 22 electoral districts, the island nation is preparing for a presidential election, where 38 candidates are competing for the presidency.
“We have finalized all the preliminary arrangements and informed the concerned authorities about our readiness,” commission chairman RMAL Ratnayake said at a press conference here.
Ratnayake also spoke on the possible delay in declaring the results if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round of counting. He said that in such a situation the Commission will count the second and third preference votes.
"We will remove all the candidates ranked 3 to 38 and count the second and third preference votes cast for the candidates ranked first and second," he said.
Historically, all eight presidential elections since 1982 have declared a winner in the first round, with the leading candidate receiving more than 50 percent of the vote.
However, this year's election is expected to be a close contest due to the growing influence of the Marxist JVP party, which has emerged as a significant third force in the race.
Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe, opposition leader and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) politician Sajith Premadasa and Marxist JVP's Anura Kumara Dissanayake are the frontrunners.
The commission also announced that postal voting, which took place over the last four days, concluded on Thursday without any major incident.
More than 700,000 state officials on election duty applied for postal voting, with an estimated 80 percent turnout.
