2001 Sri Lankan parliamentary election

Parliamentary elections were held in Sri Lanka on December 5, 2001, just a little over a year after the last elections in October 2000.

12th Sri Lankan parliamentary election

5 December 2001

All 225 seats to the Parliament of Sri Lanka
113 seats were needed for a majority
Turnout76.03%
  First party Second party
 
Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe Chandrika Kumaratunga
Party United National Front People's Alliance
Leader since 1994 1994
Leader's seat Colombo District n/a
Last election 89 Seats, 40.22% 107 Seats, 45.11%
Seats won 109 77
Seat change 20 30
Popular vote 4,086,026 3,330,815
Percentage 45.62% 37.19%

Winners of polling divisions. UNF in green and PA in blue.

Prime Minister before election

Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
People's Alliance

Prime Minister-designate

Ranil Wickremesinghe
United National Front

Background

The People's Alliance (PA) government faced a blow when most of the SLMC MPs left the coalition. President Chandrika Kumaratunga tried to recruit the JVP to replace it, but this angered several PA MPs, thirteen of which defected to the opposition. A no-confidence motion was prepared; to forestall this, Kumaratunga called the election.

More than 1,300 incidents of election violence were reported during the campaign. . Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake was nearly killed by a suicide bomber. Overall, 60 people were killed in election-related violence, including 14 on polling day.

Parties

Results

Kumaratunga's People's Alliance lost the resulting general election, which saw the United National Front win the legislative power. The UNP's leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe, became the new prime minister.

Having a President and Prime Minister from different parties proved to be unstable, and Parliament was dissolved again in 2004, leading to yet another general election.

Summary

Summary of the 2001 Sri Lankan parliamentary election[1][2]

Alliances and partiesVotes%Seats
DistrictNationalTotal
 United National Front[lower-alpha 1] 4,086,02645.62%9613109
 People's Alliance 3,330,81537.19%661177
 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna815,3539.10%13316
 Tamil National Alliance[lower-alpha 3] 348,1643.89%14115
 Sri Lanka Muslim Congress[lower-alpha 2]105,3461.18%415
 Eelam People's Democratic Party72,7830.81%202
 Democratic People's Liberation Front 16,6690.19%101
 Sinhala Heritage50,6650.57%000
 New Left Front45,9010.51%000
 Independents41,7520.47%000
Others42,3950.47%000
Valid Votes8,955,869100.00%19629225
Rejected Votes493,944
Total Polled9,449,813
Registered Electors12,428,762
Turnout76.03%

Province

Results of the 2001 Sri Lankan general election by province

Electoral District

Results of the 2001 Sri Lankan general election by electoral district

Elected members

Notes

  1. UNF contested under the name and symbol of United National Party.
  2. SLMC contested separately in three districts (Ampara, Batticaloa and Jaffna) and with the UNF in all other districts.
  3. TNA contested under the name and symbol of Tamil United Liberation Front.

References

  1. "Parliamentary General Election 2001 - All Island Result". Department of Elections, Sri Lanka. Archived from the original on 2009-01-07. Retrieved 2010-10-03.
  2. "Parliamentary General Election 2001 - Composition of Parliament". Department of Elections, Sri Lanka.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.