- Curfew imposed as 'an additional measure to protect people' – police
- Voter turnout for Saturday's election is estimated to be 75% by the end of voting day.
- The results of the presidential election are expected to be revealed on Sunday.
Sri Lanka imposed a nationwide nighttime curfew on Saturday despite a peaceful presidential election that is actually a referendum on an unpopular IMF bailout.
Police announced the eight-hour curfew shortly after the independent Electoral Commission said Saturday's vote was the most peaceful in the country's electoral history.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is facing an uphill battle to retain power, imposed the unexpected travel ban “as an additional measure to protect people,” police said in a statement.
He urged people to stay at home. Earlier in the day, the government declared Monday a special public holiday. The results of Saturday's election are expected to be known on Sunday.
Turnout was about 75% when polling stations closed after nine hours of voting, an election official said, citing provisional figures.
The record for voter turnout in a Sri Lankan presidential election was set in 2019 with 83.72%.
Wickremesinghe is seeking re-election to continue austerity measures that have stabilized the economy and ended months of shortages of food, fuel and medicine after Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis in 2022.
His two years in office restored calm to the streets after recession-fuelled civil unrest prompted thousands to storm the compound of his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country as anger mounted.
“I have brought this country out of bankruptcy,” Wickremesinghe, 75, said after casting his ballot.
But Wickremesinghe's tax hikes and other measures, imposed under the terms of a $2.9 billion IMF bailout, have left millions struggling to make ends meet.
“The country has been through a lot,” lawyer and musician David Rodrigo told Soundarie. AFP after casting his vote in Colombo.
“So I just don't want to see another upheaval in the near future.”
Wickremesinghe faces a tough challenge from two formidable contenders. One of them is Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, the leader of a once-fringe Marxist party tarnished by its violent past.
The party led two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s that left more than 80,000 dead, and won less than four percent of the vote in the previous parliamentary elections.
But the Sri Lanka crisis has proved an opportunity for Dissanayaka, 55, who has seen a surge in support based on his promise to change the island's “corrupt” political culture.
He told a polling station that he was confident of winning the top job.
“After victory there must be no confrontation or violence,” he said. “Our country needs a new political culture.”
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, 57, the son of a former president assassinated in 1993 during the country's decades-long civil war, is also expected to make a strong presence.
Premadasa has vowed to fight endemic corruption, and both he and Dissanayaka have pledged to renegotiate the terms of the IMF bailout package.
Three-way race
Political analyst Kusal Perera said AFP It was difficult to predict a winner of the triple race, the first in the island's history.
“What is clear is that no candidate will surpass the 50%” needed to win outright, he said.
Officials would then recount second- and third-preference votes to determine the winner, a process that could delay the final result.
More than 17 million people were eligible to vote in the election, and more than 63,000 police officers were deployed to protect polling booths and counting centres in schools and temples.
The government also banned the sale of liquor over the weekend and said no rallies or victory celebrations would be allowed until a week after the results were announced.
Economic issues dominated the eight-week campaign, with widespread public anger at the hardships endured since the peak of the crisis two years ago.
Official data showed Sri Lanka's poverty rate doubled to 25% between 2021 and 2022, adding more than 2.5 million people to those already living on less than $3.65 a day.
Experts warn that Sri Lanka's economy remains vulnerable and payments on the island's $46 billion external debt have yet to resume since the government defaulted in 2022.
The IMF said reforms implemented by Wickremesinghe's government were beginning to bear fruit and growth was slowly returning.
