In the presidential election held yesterday, no candidate achieved the necessary majority of over 50 percent plus one vote. Saman Sri Rathnayake, the Director General of the Election Commission, announced that nearly 3 million votes cast for candidates outside the top two are currently being counted at 1,713 counting centers across the country.
Rathnayake emphasized that the complexity of the counting process may delay the announcement of final results. As it stands, Anura Kumara Dissanayake leads the race with 5,638,915 votes, representing 42.32 percent of the total. Sajith Premadasa follows with 4,363,035 votes, or 32.76 percent, while Ranil Wickremesinghe has received 2,299,976 votes, accounting for 17.2 percent.
Additionally, the Election Commission is counting second and third preference votes from those who did not select Dissanayake or Premadasa. This recount, involving approximately 3 million votes, is being conducted under the supervision of election observers. Rathnayake indicated that the sorting process is expected to take an additional three to four hours due to its complexity.
