Mahinda Rajapaksa will be sworn in as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister for the fourth time on Sunday after his party registered a landslide victory in the general election, securing two-thirds majority in Parliament needed to amend the Constitution to further consolidate the powerful Rajapaksa family’s grip on power.
The Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP), led by prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, won in 145 constituencies, bagging a total of 150 seats with its allies, a two-thirds majority in the 225-member Parliament, according to the results announced by the election commission on Friday.
It won all but four of the 22 electoral districts on offer, polling 6.8 million votes (59.9 per cent).
The 74-year-old Prime Minister Mahinda thanked the Sri Lankan people for putting their faith in the SLPP and said that the country will not stand disappointed during its tenure.
“Heartfelt gratitude to all SriLankans for placing their trust in President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, myself and the PodujanaParty and voting for the ‘Saubhagye Dakkama’ election manifesto in overwhelming numbers. We will ensure Sri Lanka will not stand disappointed during our tenure,” he said.
Mahinda will be sworn in as the new prime minister for the fourth time on Sunday at a ceremony at the historic Buddhist temple of Kelaniya, a north Colombo suburb, according to an official statement.
He created a record in polling over 500,000 individual preference votes, the highest ever recorded by a candidate in the history of elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Mahinda on the outcome of the elections and said the two sides will work together to further advance all areas of bilateral cooperation and to take their special ties to ever newer heights.
“Thank you PM @narendramodi for your congratulatory phone call. With the strong support of the people of #SriLanka, I look forward to working with you closely to further enhance the long-standing cooperation between our two countries. Sri Lanka & India are friends & relations,” Mahinda tweeted.
The Rajapaksa family has dominated Sri Lankan politics for two decades. Mahinda was previously president, from 2005 to 2015. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had won the November presidential election on the SLPP ticket.
In the parliamentary election, he was seeking 150 seats mandatory to execute constitutional changes, including to repeal the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which had curbed the presidential powers while strengthening the role of Parliament.
Activists, already alarmed by the diminishing space for dissent and criticism in the island nation, fear such a move could lead to authoritarianism.