Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2004

Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2004

Parliamentary elections were held in Sri Lanka on 2 April 2004. The ruling United National Party of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was defeated, winning only eighty two seats in the 225-member Sri Lankan parliament. The opposition United People's Freedom Alliance won 105 seats. While this was eight seats short of an absolute majority, the Alliance was able to form a government.

On 6 April President Chandrika Kumaratunga commissioned Mahinda Rajapakse, a former Labour Minister, as Prime Minister.

Parties

The United People's Freedom Alliance was formed as an alliance between President Kumaratunga's party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), and the leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. Other parties that belong to the People's Alliance, such as the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, the Democratic United National Front, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and the Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya, later joined UPFA.

In the 2001 elections, the People's Alliance and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna had fought separately. Then the JVP won 9.1% of the vote and sixteen seats. At this election it is reported than as many as thirty nine JVP members won seats as UPFA candidates.

The runner-up in the election was the United National Front (UNF), the front led by the United National Party. In addition to the UNP, the UNF also had candidates from minor parties such as Ceylon Workers Congress.

Other parties winning seats were the Buddhist, Sinhala nationalist outfit Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), the pro-LTTE alliance Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP). The Democratic Peoples Liberation Front (the political wing of PLOTE) lost their parliamentary representation.

Campaign

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe's UNF government had been in limbo since October 2003, when President Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency and took three key cabinet portfolios for her party. During the campaign, she argued that Wickremasinghe had been too soft on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and promised to take a harder line. The UNF, for its part, stressed the economic gains that had been made with the ceasefire and the need to find a negotiated solution to the civil war.

Voting

Polling booths opened at 07:00 local time and remained open until 16:00 (01:00 to 10:00 UTC). A total of 10,670 polling stations were installed to receive votes from 12.9 million eligible voters. Voter turnout was high, at around 75%.

The backdrop to polling day was tense, with continued guerrilla activity by Tamil Tiger separatists and five politically motivated murders in the run-up to the election. However, except for a slightly lower turnout in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka and allegations of fraud in the North, the election was calm and orderly.

Sri Lanka's Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake said that despite reported cases of electoral malpractice in certain polling stations in six electoral districts, there would be no fresh elections in these areas and the results issued by the Commission were final.

Results

National summary of votes and seats

The United People's Freedom Alliance vote and seat totals are compared with the combined People's Alliance and JVP vote and seat counts at the 2001 election.

Votes and seats by electoral district

ee also

*Politics of Sri Lanka
*List of political parties in Sri Lanka
*Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka

External links

* [http://www.manthree.com Sri Lanka Election Results]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2001 — Parliamentary elections were held in Sri Lanka on December 6, 2001, just a little over a year after the last elections in October 2000. BackgroundThe People s Alliance (PA) government faced a blow when most of the SLMC MPs left the coalition.… …   Wikipedia

  • Sri Lankan Civil War — Sri Lanka is an island off the coast of India Date July 23, 1983 – May 18, 2009 …   Wikipedia

  • Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism — For other uses, see Tamil nationalism (disambiguation). Part of a series on Sri Lankan Tamil people ஈழத் த …   Wikipedia

  • Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war — Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009) Background Sri Lanka · History of Sri Lanka Origins of the Civil War Origins of the Civil War · Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism …   Wikipedia

  • Elections in Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka This artic …   Wikipedia

  • Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan, adj., n. /sree lahng keuh, lang keuh, shree / an island republic in the Indian Ocean, S of India: a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 18,762,075; 25,332 sq. mi. (65,610 sq. km). Cap.: Colombo. Formerly, Ceylon. Arabic, Serendip.… …   Universalium

  • Sri Lanka — Ceylon redirects here. For the time period of 1948 1972, see Dominion of Ceylon. For other uses, see Ceylon (disambiguation). Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka ශ්‍රී ලංකා ප්‍රජාතාන්ත්‍රික සමාජවාදී ජනරජය (Sinhala) இலங்கை சனநாயக சமத்துவ… …   Wikipedia

  • 1987–89 JVP Insurrection (Sri Lanka) — The 1987 89 insurrection in Sri Lanka, in which around 50,000 lives were lost, was carried out by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, a Marxist Sinhalese political party in Sri Lanka. Background history1971 JVP uprisingLeadup to conflict in the… …   Wikipedia

  • Politics of Sri Lanka — Template:Politics of Sri LankaPolitics of Sri Lanka takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Sri Lanka is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi party system.… …   Wikipedia

  • Dates of 2004 — ▪ 2005 January It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgment. David Kay, former U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, in testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, January 28 January 1              Haitian Pres. Jean… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”