Important presidential elections in Sri Lanka have ended

Colombo: Voting in the crucial presidential election ended at 4 p.m. in Sri Lanka on Saturday. It was the first election in the island nation since the worst economic collapse in 2022.

The authorities have not yet announced the final voter turnout. By 2 p.m., more than 60 percent of the 17 million eligible voters had already cast their votes, they said.

“At 4pm, we will try to start counting the postal votes and at 6pm, we want to start the normal counting. Within two to three hours of the start of the vote counting, we will be able to announce the results,” Colombo City Deputy Chief Electoral Officer MKSKK Bandaramapa said earlier in the day.

The first result could be announced by midnight, said Election Commissioner Saman Sri Ratnayake, according to The Daily Mirror News portal.

The election will be a test for incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who claims to have put the country on the path to economic recovery.

Analysts said this election, with 38 candidates, was the most hotly contested presidential election since 1982.

Around 17 million people are eligible to vote in over 13,400 polling stations. Over 200,000 officials are deployed to conduct the election, which is guarded by 63,000 police officers.

The police electoral office said the election was peaceful and there were no reports of violence.

Wickremesinghe, 75, is seeking re-election to a five-year term as an independent candidate, building on his success in leading the country out of an economic crisis that many experts have described as one of the fastest recoveries in the world.

As Sri Lanka sank into economic collapse in 2022, a popular uprising led then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to leave the country.

Wickremesinghe was appointed President by Parliament a week later.