Sri Lanka election commission to announce presidential poll date by end of month

Colombo, Jul 16 (PTI) The date for the much-awaited presidential election in Sri Lanka will be announced by the end of this month, the election commission said on Tuesday.
     The announcement of the date will come amid uncertainty created by petitions filed in the Supreme Court which the opposition has dubbed as the government's moves to dodge the election.
     Election Commission Chairman R.M.A.L. Ratnayake said only a court injunction could prevent the holding of the election.
     “We can’t influence people not to challenge by filing cases. We at the same time will try to defeat those cases through the Attorney General,” Ratnayake said.
     Two such cases with implications on the election have been dismissed with costs by the Supreme Court.
     Incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe is expected to contest the election.
     On the expected costs, Ratnayake said there were no issues related to the funds required despite the cost having doubled over the expenditure for the last presidential election held in 2019.
     “The cost of the presidential elections has risen from Rs 2.7 billion in 2015 to Rs 4.5 billion in 2019," Ratnayake said.
     “For this election, we have asked for 10 billion rupees and we have got the allocation. The costs include those of the government printer and the police," Ratnayake said.
     This will be the first election to be held after Sri Lanka plunged into economic bankruptcy in 2022.
     The 2023 council poll to elect over 300 local bodies was cancelled as the government declared no funds to hold it due to the economic crisis.
     The opposition's legal challenge against non-holding of the local election is still pending.
     The commission would be empowered to announce the poll date from midnight on Tuesday.
     “As per the constitutional requirement, the election commission has to conduct the election between September 17 and October 16," Ratnayake said.
     He said 17,140,000 registered voters out of 21 million population were eligible to vote in the election.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)