General election in Sri Lanka 2010

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(Share of votes in%)

 %

70

60

50

40

30th

20th

10

0

60.33

29.34

5.49

2.90

0.31

1.63

UPFA

UNP ^b

DNA ^c

TNA ^d

UCPF

Otherwise.

Gains and losses

compared to 2004

 % p

 16

 14th

 12

 10

   8th

   6th

   4th

   2

   0

  -2

  -4

  -6

  -8th

-10

+14.73

-8.49

+5.49

-3.94

-0.23

-7.56

UPFA

UNP ^b

DNA ^c

TNA ^d

UCPF

Otherwise.

Remarks:

^b The parties of the United National Front (UNF) (UNP, SLMC , SLFP (M) and DPF) competed under the party banner of the UNP. The result of the UNP is compared to that of the United National Front (UNF) in 2004.

^c The Democratic National Alliance (DNA) was formed in 2010 from the New Democratic Front (NDF) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

^d The Tamil National Alliance officially competed under the party symbols of Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK).

Absolute or relative majorities according to constituencies: United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Tamil National Alliance (TNA)



Majorities by constituency: United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Tamil National Alliance (TNA) United National Party (UNP)




The 2010 general election in Sri Lanka took place on April 8th and 20th, 2010. The election was the first parliamentary election in Sri Lanka after the end of almost 26 years of civil war in May 2009. The election ended with a clear victory for the UPFA , the party of the recently re-elected President Mahinda Rajapaksa . The turnout was 61.26%.

Starting position

In the last parliamentary election in 2004, the UPFA had become the strongest party, but had missed an absolute majority of the seats. For this reason, a UPFA minority government was initially formed. In the course of the legislative period , however, some members of the opposition parties defected into the government camp, so that the UPFA finally achieved a stable parliamentary majority and was thus able to govern the entire legislative period. In 2010, under President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has been in power since 2005, the rebel organization of the Tamil Tigers was decisively defeated and the civil war on the island that had been going on since 1983 was ended. The Tamil Tigers themselves also admitted their complete defeat. As a result, President Rajapaksa experienced an enormous surge in popularity among the Sinhalese majority population, which he took advantage of by holding early presidential elections, although his term of office would not have ended until 2011. Rajapaksa was not without controversy due to its authoritarian, high-handed government style and its favoring close family members in the allocation of government and other state posts. However , he clearly won the election on January 26, 2010 with almost 58% of the vote in front of his opponent Sarath Fonseka of the New Democratic Front .

Then Rajapaksa dissolved parliament and had new elections scheduled for April 8, 2010. On February 8, 2010, Sarath Fonseka was arrested. The official reason for this was that he had made himself a criminal offense by becoming politically active during his time as an army leader. Critics of Rajapaksa at home and abroad saw this as an attempt to silence the leading opposition politician. Shortly before his arrest, Fonseka had announced that he was ready to testify before an international human rights tribunal that Defense Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa - the president's younger brother - had been involved in war crimes in the fight against the Tamil Tigers . However, as a former military leader, Fonseka was also affected by similar allegations. After Fonseka was arrested, the opposition entered the upcoming elections largely without a leader.

The constituent parties of the UPFA alliance stood together under its banner, while the opposition parties were still weakened by the electoral defeat of their candidate Fonseka and were unable to agree on a common electoral platform. The United National Front (UNF) did not gain recognition as a political party and therefore its constituent parties United National Party (UNP), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), SLFP (M) and DPF competed under the banner of the UNP. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) competed separately, while the Fonseka party, the New Democratic Front and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) formed an alliance under the name Democratic National Alliance (DNA), of which Sarath Fonseka became the top candidate. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) comprised the three Tamil parties Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO). The TNA parties all competed under the ITAK banner.

• Sri Lankan politicians
• 

  Mahinda Rajapaksa
  (UPFA)

• 

  Sarath Fonseka
  (DNA)

• 

  Ranil Wickremesinghe
  (UNF)

• 

  R. Sampanthan
  (TNA)

Election mode

→ Main article : Elections in Sri Lanka

The election was based on proportional representation . The country is divided into 22 electoral districts , which are largely identical to the administrative districts of Sri Lanka . In each constituency, a certain number of representatives are elected according to the proportional representation according to the voting shares of the respective parties. For example, the Kandy constituency elected a total of 12 MPs in this election. The voters have the opportunity to change the order on the ballot so that the candidates in the first places on the party list do not necessarily win the race. A total of 196 MPs are elected at constituency level. 29 more MPs are chosen based on the nationwide performance of the parties. The total number of MPs is 225.

Election process

A total of 7,680 candidates from 366 registered political parties as well as 370 independent candidates registered for the 196 seats in parliament at the district level. Of the 366 parties, 30 were not allowed to vote, as were 69 of the 370 independent candidates. The large number of different parties and candidates meant that the ballot papers in some constituencies were too long. The major parties UPFA, UNP and DNA ran candidates in all constituencies, the Tamil National Alliance and the TNA only ran for candidates in the northern and eastern provinces. The election campaign was marked by numerous riots and irregularities. The Center for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) counted 423 incidents up to election day. 231 of these were classified as "serious", including homicides, grievous bodily harm, arson, and the like. A significant part of the acts of violence did not take place between, but within the parties (e.g. between members of the UPFA). The CMEV and other non-governmental institutions have alleged that the elections were not "free and fair", as Tamil refugees in particular in the north of the island were prevented from voting freely because no clear guidelines had been issued as to which identification papers were issued to be used. There were also some attacks on election day. As a result, the election in the Nawalapitiya constituency in Kandy district was declared invalid by the Elections Commissioner in some districts and a new election was ordered, which took place on April 20.

Results

Overall result

The nationwide turnout was 61.26% (8,630,680 voters out of 14,088,500 eligible voters). The regionally very different voter turnout was noticeable. The turnout was lowest in the predominantly Tamil northern province and highest in the capital region of Colombo . The relatively high number of invalid votes was also noticeable (nationwide 596,972, corresponding to 6.92%). These proportions were highest in the Central Province (10.1%) and in the Northern Province (10.5%).

Party / electoral alliance		Abbreviation	be right	%	Seats
					nationwide	Constituencies	total
	United People's Freedom Alliance	UPFA	4,846,388	60.33	17th	127	144
	United National Party	UNP	2,357,057	29.34	9	51	60
	Tamil National Alliance	TNA	233.190	2.90	1	13	14th
	Democratic National Alliance	DNA	441.251	5.49	2	5	7th
	All the rest together		155.831	1.94	0	0	0
Total valid votes			8,033,717	100.0	29	196	225
Invalid or empty ballot papers (as a percentage of those submitted)			596,972 (6.92%)
Total votes cast (turnout)			8,630,689 (61.26%)
Registered voters			14,088,500 (100.0%)

Results by constituency

At constituency level, the UPFA won 127 seats (64.8%), the UNP 51 (26.0%), the DNA 5 (2.6%) and the TNA 13 (6.6%).

Constituency	Valid votes	Seats	UPFA		UNP		DNA		TNA		Other		electoral participation
			%	Seats	%	Seats	%	Seats	%	Seats	%	Seats
Colombo	939.375	19th	51.19	10	36.17	7th	11.78	2	-	0	0.9	0	65.03
Gampaha	930.233	18th	63.37	12	28.65	5	7.50	1	-	0	0.5	0	66.5
Kalutara	492,855	10	63.68	7th	28.32	2	7.45	1	-	0	0.6	0	66.97
Mahanuwara	559.226	12	60.77	8th	34.48	4th	4.24	0	-	0	0.5	0	63.64
Matale	195,750	5	66.96	4th	28.47	1	3.90	0	-	0	0.7	0	62.76
Nuwara Eliya	266.234	7th	56.01	5	36.39	2	4.95	0	-	0	2.7	0	66.38
bile	461.388	10	66.17	7th	26.03	2	7.30	1	-	0	0.5	0	63.20
Matara	327,582	8th	65.31	6th	27.81	2	6.25	0	-	0	0.6	0	59.06
Hambantota	278.054	7th	62.87	5	29.86	2	6.90	0	-	0	0.4	0	68.69
Jaffna	148.503	9	32.07	3	8.50	1	0.14	0	43.85	5	15.4	0	23.33
Vanni	106.977	6th	35.07	2	11.95	1	5.52	0	38.96	3	8.5	0	43.89
Batticaloa	180,618	5	34.33	1	12.70	1	0.18	0	36.67	3	16.1	0	58.56
Digamadulla	256.946	7th	51.41	4th	35.32	2	1.14	0	10.47	1	1.7	0	64.74
Trincomalee	139,742	4th	42.78	2	28.40	1	1.80	0	23.81	1	3.2	0	62.20
Kurunegala	672.436	15th	63.84	10	31.78	5	3.93	0	-	0	0.4	0	61.30
Puttalam	258,792	8th	64.83	6th	31.36	2	3.40	0	-	0	0.4	0	56.57
Anuradhapura	332,538	9	66.52	7th	24.17	2	5.45	0	-	0	3.9	0	61.37
Polonnauwa	171,471	5	69.22	4th	26.67	1	3.77	0	-	0	0.3	0	66.44
Badulla	349,678	8th	58.25	6th	32.28	2	4.51	0	-	0	5.0	0	65.04
Monaragala	159,491	5	75.64	4th	18.12	1	5.65	0	-	0	0.6	0	56.43
Ratnapura	443.373	10	68.86	7th	28.21	3	2.49	0	-	0	0.4	0	65.39
Kegalle	362,455	9	66.89	7th	28.95	2	3.73	0	-	0	0.4	0	63.27
Overall result	8,033,717	196	60.33	127	29.34	51	5.49	5	2.90	13	1.94	0	61.26

evaluation

The election was won with great clarity by the UPFA, the party of the ruling President Rajapaksas. It was the biggest election victory of a party since 1977 . However, according to the judgment of independent domestic and foreign election observers, the election could only be viewed as fair and free to a limited extent. Although no election fraud was reported, parts of the Tamil population in the north of the island were de facto excluded from the election, the press and state media were under the massive influence of the government and were appropriately instrumentalized by it and there were considerable violent clashes in the run-up of choice. As in the presidential election three months earlier, the majority of the Tamil minority voted for Tamil opposition parties.

Web links

Election results on the Department of Elections website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Parliamentary Elections Results. Department of Elections, accessed on October 19, 2019 (English, the 5 percent threshold clause did not apply nationwide, but always based on the respective constituency). 
2. ^ Charles Haviland: Final Sri Lanka vote count confirms Rajapaksa triumph. BBC News, April 21, 2010, accessed January 22, 2015 . 
3. ^ ^{A b} Charles Haviland: Leaderless Sri Lankan opposition faces uphill task. BBC Nes, February 9, 2010, accessed January 22, 2015 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Battle of Titans in Colombo. The Nation, accessed January 21, 2015 . 
5. ^ Presidential Election - 2010. Department of Elections (Sri Lanka), 2010, archived from the original on January 27, 2010 ; accessed on January 27, 2010 (English). 
6. ^ Election Violence in Sri Lanka: Parliamentary Election April 2010: Summary of incidents to date. Center for Monitoring Election Violence, accessed January 21, 2015 . 
7. ^ Sri Lanka ruling party wins majority in parliament. BBC News, April 9, 2010, accessed January 21, 2015 . 
8. ↑ N'pitiya repoll to be Gazetted. Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka), April 9, 2010, accessed January 21, 2015 .