Sri Lanka election goes to historic second count
Second round of vote-counting between Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa to determine the winner of Sri Lanka’s presidential election.No candidate got 50 percent plus one votes required to secure an outright victory.
Sri Lanka’s election system allows voters to rank up to three candidates in order of their preference on a ballot paper. If no candidate secures 50 percent in the first count, a second round of counting determines the winner between the two top candidates, using the preferential votes.
The state of the economy has dominated voters’ concerns, with many struggling to make ends meet after the imposition of harsh austerity measures following a $2.9bn International Monetary Fund (IMF) emergency loan.
Source: Aljazeera
