More Info:
At stake in this election:
- 225 seats in the Parliament
Description of government structure:
- Chief of State: President Maithripala SIRISENA*
- Head of Government: President Maithripala SIRISENA
- Assembly: Sri Lanka has a unicameral Parliament with 225 seats.
* Under the contingent vote system, voters may rank up to three candidates. If no candidate wins a majority in the first round of counting, ballots whose first rankings are eliminated candidates are redistributed to the next-ranked candidates on those ballots. The winner is the candidate with the most votes after this second round of counting.
Description of electoral system:
- The President is elected through a contingent vote system to serve a 6-year term.
- In the Parliament 225 members are elected by open list proportional representation in multi-member constituencies to serve 6-year terms.***
*** Parties must clear a threshold of one-eighth of votes to win seats in the respective constituency. Each voter may cast three preference votes. There are 22 multi-member constituencies containing 196 seats and one nationwide constituency with 29 seats.
Election Note:
- The election was originally scheduled for 2 years from now but was rescheduled by President Maithripala Sirisena following his victory in the January 2015 presidential race.[1]
Main parties in the electoral race[2]:
- Party: United People's Freedom Alliance
- Leader: Maithripala SIRISENA
- Seats won in last election: 144
- Party: United National Party
- Leader: Ranil WICKRAMASINGHE
- Seats won in last election: 60
- Party: Tamil National Alliance (Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi)
- Leader: Mavai SENATHIRAJAH
- Seats won in last election: 14
- Party: Democratic National Alliance (Janathā Vimukthi Peramuṇa)
- Leader: Sarath FONSEKA
- Seats won in last election: 7
Last election:
- The last election for the Parliament was held on 8 April 2010. There were 14,088,500 registered voters for the election. The United People's Freedom Alliance won 144 seats (of 225) or 60.66% of the vote, the United National Party won 60 seats, the Tamil National Alliance won 14 seats, and the Democratic National Alliance won 7 seats. Results can be found here.
Population and number of registered voters:
- Population: 21,866,445 (July 2014 est.)
- Registered Voters:15,044,499[3]
Gender Data:
- Female Population: 11,172,825
- Is Sri Lanka a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (17 July 1980)
- Has Sri Lanka ratified CEDAW: Yes (5 October 1981)
- Gender Quota: No
- Female Candidates in this election: Yes
- Number of Female Legislators: 13 (6%) of 225 seats in Parliament
- Human Development Index (HDI) Position: 73 (2014)
- Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: Medium (2014)
Disability Data:
- Is Sri Lanka a signatory to CRPD: Yes (30 March 2007)
- Has Sri Lanka ratified CRPD: No