In its first check since sweeping national polls last year, Sri Lanka’s communist government won regional government elections on May 7, 2025, according to official results released on Wednesday. The alliance led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in 265 of the 339 authorities, but it struggled to achieve an overwhelming majority in about half of them. The Tamil National Alliance, the country’s major minority Tamil party, won 35 governments, compared to the main opposition SJB, which won only 14 of those.
Poll
Do you think Anura Kumara Dissanayake may form partnerships with traditional parties?
Although the parties of former president Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapaksa failed to take command of a single council, they did so by gaining 1, 123 out of the 8, 299 tickets. The communist NPP has ruled out forming coalitions with traditional parties because it will have the backing of another parties to control about 130 councils, which it did not have an absolute majority in. Dissanayake’s NPP vote share decreased to 43.3 percentage from the 61.6 percentage it was able to secure in the November legislative election. SJB, the main opposition, increased slightly to 21.7 cent from 17.70 percent, to reach the main opposition. Dissanayake capitalized on his acceptance to get the legislative election two months later, upsetting the more well-established parties and winning the September presidential election. The 56-year-old has made a U-turn since taking office and has continued to impose higher taxes on his vow to renegotiate the terms of a controversial IMF loan. He claimed that his group needed to secure local councils to ensure that all levels of government were “free of bribery and widespread waste” after staging a referendum on his six-month-old administration. About 60 % of the 17.14 million electorate cast ballots on Tuesday, a decrease from nearly 70 % in November and 80 % in the presidential election in September. Lackluster plan with no prominent candidates in the working.
