Sajith Premadasa returns higher majority votes in North and East

Voters are turning up to cast their votes yesterday at a polling booth in Batticaloa, East. Pix: Northeastern Monitor/ Theva Athiran

In what looked like an entirely different election results pattern, SJB Presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa returned a higher number of votes compared to other candidates.

Jaffna electoral district experienced a tight race with Mr Premadasa beating Tamil Common candidate P. Ariyanethrian by only 4489 votes. Manipay division went to Premadasa by only 22 votes. Kayts, Jaffna, Vaddukkoddai, Udupiddy, Point Pedro, and Nallur divisions in Jaffna electorate voted in favor of Ariyanethran while Kankesanthurai, Manipay, Kopay, Chavakachcheri, and Kilinochchi voted for Premadasa.  

In the Vanni electoral district, Mr Premadasa secured a higher margin, beating his main contender Wickremesinghe by over 42,000 votes. Mr Ariyanethran trailed at third place having received 36,377 votes or 16.74 per cent. Mr Premadasa won all Vanni polling divisions. 

The tight race in the North is unique this time compared to previous elections where Northern voters rallied behind one particular candidate. In 2019 and 2015 they voted overwhelmingly for Mr Premadasa and Mr Sirisena respectively. But in this election, no candidate received more than half of their vote. 

In the East, voting patterns were more closely similar to trends in the South as the Tamil common candidate did not make it to the top three. Nevertheless, a crucial difference is the better performance of Mr Wickremesinghe over Mr Dissanayake. 

Mr Premadasa comfortably won all three districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Digamadulla. In Trincomalee Dissanayake lagged by 29.53 percent and in Digamadulla, he was 21.59 per cent behind. Meanwhile, in Batticaloa, Mr Wickremesinghe proved to be a stronger competitor coming in second. Ariyanethiran received 7.74 per cent  in Trincomalee, 2.36 per cent in Digamadulla, and 9.71 per cent in Batticaloa. 

In the Digamadulla electoral district, the Ampara electorate was the only one to vote for Dissanayake in the district.In Trincomalee too, the race in the Tamil and Muslim majority divisions of Mutur and Trincomalee was between Premadasa and Wickremesinghe while the Sinhala majority division of Seruwila brought Dissanayake in second. 

In Batticaloa Mr Premadasa and Mr Wickremesinghe were front-runners across the board. Mr Dissanayake didn't even make it to third place in two of the three electroates, with Ariyanethiran overtaking him in Kalkudah and Padiruppu. (Times Online)