Sri Lanka parliamentary elections 2024: What’s at stake?

Here is why the upcoming parliamentary election is so significant for newly-elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

Sri Lankans will cast ballots in a snap parliamentary election on Thursday, months after electing a Marxist-leaning president in the Indian island nation’s first election since the 2022 economic meltdown and political crisis.

The election was called by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won the September election after blaming the country’s traditional ruling elite for the economic collapse that led to the country defaulting on its loans.

Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) alliance has just three seats in the outgoing parliament, but opinion polls give the bloc an edge over parties that have ruled the island nation since its independence in 1948.

Here’s a look at the significance of the elections and how they could affect Dissanayake’s political vision for the country of 22 million.

What time does the election start in Sri Lanka?

Polls open between 7am (01:30 GMT) and 4pm (10:30 GMT) local time.

Dissanayake, who has been critical of the “old political guard”, has pledged to abolish the country’s executive presidency, a system under which power is largely centralised under the president. The executive presidency, which first came into existence under President JR Jayawardene in 1978, has been widely criticised in the country for years, but no political party, once in power, has scrapped it until now. The system has in recent years been blamed by critics for the country’s economic and political crises.

Dissanayake has promised to fight corruption and end austerity measures imposed by his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as part of the bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund