JVP’s Anura a distant third with just three votes

By Saman Indrajith

Ranil Wickremesinghe was yesterday elected the eighth Executive President by a majority of 52 MPs in Parliament. He received 134 votes, while other two candidates, Dullas Alahapperuma and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, received 82 and three votes, respectively.

As per the provisions of the Presidential Elections (special provisions) Act No 2 of 1978, at a secret vote in the House, the MPs voted to elect a succeeding President to fill in the post left vacant after the premature forced resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa last week.

Voting started at 10.23 am and ended at 11.44 am. Before voting began, Secretary General of Parliament, Dhammika Dasanayake, who acted as the Returning Officer during the election, showed the empty ballot box to the members, before sealing it.

Names of each MP were called for voting by the Secretary General, on a basis of the division list.

Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena commenced the voting process by casting his vote. Acting President Wickremesinghe was the second to cast his vote. Digamadulla SLPP MP D Weerasinghe and SLPP Kurunegala District MP Samanpriya Herath were indisposed but they came to Parliament to vote. Three SLPP MPs, Kanaka Herath, Arundika Fernando and P. Jayasekera had returned from overseas to cast their votes.

The counting of votes commenced around 11.51 am. Speaker Abeywardena announced that the three candidates could monitor the counting of the votes or they could nominate a representative. The Speaker informed no mobile phones would be permitted during the counting.

Accordingly, Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe nominated MP Harin Fernando while Dullas Alahapperuma nominated MP Dillan Perera and Anura Kumara Dissanayake nominated MP Vijitha Herath to monitor the counting process.

Only 223 MPs out of 225 member-house voted in the election. TNA MPs Selvarasa Kajendran and GG Ponnambalam abstained from voting. At the announcement of the results, Secretary General Dhammika Dasanayake said that four votes were discarded as they were invalid owing to errors.