2019 Sri Lankan presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Sri Lanka on 16 November 2019. The incumbent President Maithripala Sirisena's term of office would have ended on 9 January 2020. This was the first presidential election in Sri Lanka where no sitting president, prime minister or opposition leader ran for president.
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Turnout | 83.72% (2.20pp) | ||||||||||||||||||
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Results by polling division | |||||||||||||||||||
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Sajith Premadasa, son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa and deputy leader of the United National Party was the candidate of the ruling party. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, was the candidate of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and was endorsed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.
The results were announced on 17 November 2019. Rajapaksa won the election in a landslide victory, defeating his main opponent Premadasa by a significant margin, thus bringing the Rajapaksa family back to power after a 5-year interregnum.