Mahinda Rajapaksa has secured an unprecedented landslide victory in Sri Lanka’s Parliamentary elections 2020 and will be soon chaired as the 24th Prime Minister.
Amid Coronavirus pandemic, Sri Lanka has managed to hold elections safely. Measures were taken to avoid the spread of the pandemic as per government sources of Sri Lanka. Elections for the Sri Lankan parliament was conducted on Wednesday. The results were declared in the early hours of Friday.
As expected Mahinda Rajapaksa has won the elections and will be soon declared as the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. More than 16 million voters used their right to elect the future prime minister. Out of the total 225 parliament seats, Mahinda has comfortably gained 2/3rd majority.
Also, read: Somalia Parliament Ousted Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire
Elections were conducted for 196 Parliament seats directly whereas the remaining 29 seats will be filled by the proportional representation based on these results.
According to Sri Lanka’s Election Commission, more than 7,452 candidates are representing from 70 officially recognised political parties in total for the Prime Minister’s post.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has declared that the Parliament will meet on August 20.
With this win, Sri Lanka will be ruled completely by the Rajapaksa dynasty. Before the elections, the Rajapaksas were in favour of making changes to the constitution which will now be a very smooth and easy task for them.
Mahinda Rajapaksa before these elections was a caretaking prime minister from November 2019, after Ranil Wickremesinghe of the opposition United National Party (UNP), resigned as PM following his party’s humiliating defeat in the presidential elections.
Rajapaksa dynasty members in the ruling
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party’s candidate and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s brother Mahindra Rajapaksa is now elected the Prime Minister.
Earlier Mahinda Rajapaksa served as Sri Lanka’s prime minister in 2004 and then president from 2005 until January 2015.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s youngest brother Basil Rajapaksa is Sri Lanka People’s Freedom Alliance (SLPFA) coalition’s candidate. He is also a political strategist for Mahinda.
Chamal Rajapaksa was the speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament when his brother Mahinda was president. He is also also a former minister of shipping and aviation.
Namal Rajapaksa, the eldest son of Mahinda entered into Sri Lankan parliament in 2010 when his father was in power.