Curfew imposed in Sri Lanka after polls close peacefully

Sri Lankan police officers stand guard as a bus carrying ballot boxes returns to a counting center at the end of voting in Colombo on Saturday. (AP pic)

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka imposed a night curfew across the country on Saturday despite a peaceful presidential election that is effectively a referendum on an unpopular IMF bailout.

Police announced the eight-hour curfew shortly after the independent Election Commission said Saturday’s poll was the most peaceful in the country’s electoral history.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is facing an uphill battle to retain power, imposed the unexpected travel restriction “as an additional measure to protect people,” police said in a statement.

It urged people to remain indoors. Earlier in the day, the government declared Monday a special public holiday. Results of Saturday’s election are expected on Sunday.

Turnout was at an estimated 75% when polling stations closed after nine hours of voting, an election official said, citing provisional figures.

The record for voter turnout in a Sri Lankan presidential election was set in 2019 with 83.72%.

Wickremesinghe is seeking re-election to continue belt-tightening measures that stabilized the economy and ended months of food, fuel, and medicine shortages after Sri Lanka’s worst economic meltdown in 2022.

His two years in office restored calm to the streets after civil unrest spurred by the downturn saw thousands storm the compound of his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country as anger mounted.

“I’ve taken this country out of bankruptcy,” Wickremesinghe, 75, said after casting his ballot.

But Wickremesinghe’s tax hikes and other measures, imposed under the terms of a US$2.9-billion IMF bailout, have left millions struggling to make ends meet.

“The country has been through a lot,” lawyer and musician Soundarie David Rodrigo told AFP after casting her vote in Colombo.

“So I just don’t want to see another upheaval coming soon.”

Wickremesinghe faces a tough challenge from two formidable contenders. One is Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, the leader of an once-marginal Marxist party tarnished by its violent past.

The party led two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s that left more than 80,000 people dead, and it won less than 4% of the vote in the previous parliamentary elections.

But Sri Lanka’s crisis has come an opportunity for the 55-year-old Dissanayaka, who has seen a surge of support based on his pledge to change the island’s “corrupt” political culture.

He said at a polling station he was confident of securing the top job.

“After the victory there should be no clashes, no violence,” he said. “Our country needs a new political culture.”

Fellow opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, 57, the son of a former president assassinated in 1993 during the country’s decades-long civil war, is also expected to make a strong showing.

Premadasa has vowed to fight endemic corruption, and both he and Dissanayaka have pledged to renegotiate the terms of the IMF rescue package.

Three-way race

Political analyst Kusal Perera told AFP it was difficult to predict a winner from the three-way race – the first in the island’s history.

“What is clear is that no candidate will surpass the 50 percent mark” needed to win outright, he said.

Officials would then carry out a count of second- and third-preference votes to determine the winner, a process that could delay the final result.

More than 17 million people were eligible to vote in the election, with more than 63,000 police deployed to guard polling booths and counting centers in schools and temples.

The government also banned the sale of liquor over the weekend and said no victory rallies or celebrations would be permitted until a week after the results were announced.

Economic issues dominated the eight-week campaign, with public anger widespread over the hardships endured since the peak of the crisis two years ago.

Official data showed that Sri Lanka’s poverty rate doubled to 25% between 2021 and 2022, adding more than 2.5 million people to those already living on less than US$3.65 a day.

Experts warn that Sri Lanka’s economy is still vulnerable, with payments on the island’s US$46 billion foreign debt yet to resume since a 2022 government default.

The IMF said reforms enacted by Wickremesinghe’s government were beginning to pay off, with growth slowly returning.