Landslide win for Sri Lanka President's leftist coalition in snap polls

COLOMBO - Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's leftist coalition won a landslide victory in snap legislative elections, results showed on Nov 15, as voters repudiated establishment parties blamed for triggering an economic crisis.

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Mr Dissanayake, a self-avowed Marxist, swept September's presidential election on a promise to combat graft and recover stolen assets, two years after a slow-motion financial crash imposed widespread hardships on the island nation.

His decision to immediately call polls and secure parliamentary backing for his agenda was vindicated on Nov 15, with his National People's Power (NPP) coalition taking at least 123 seats in the 225-member assembly and on track to win many more.

The coalition had a monumental 62 per cent of the vote among the more than three-quarters of ballots counted so far, while opposition leader Sajith Premadasa's party was well behind on 18 per cent.

"People voted to get rid of corruption and a corrupt system," IT professional Chanaka Rajapaksha, who supported the NPP in the polls, told AFP on Nov 15.

In a sign of the magnitude of support for Mr Dissanayake, his party won the most votes in the northern district of Jaffna, dominated by the island's minority Tamil community, for the first time since independence from Britain in 1948.

Mr Dissanayake, the 55-year-old son of a labourer, said he expected a strong majority in Parliament to press ahead with his platform after casting his ballot in the Nov 14 polls.