Sri Lanka Presidential Polls: Last day of Postal Voting | DD India

in Sri Lanka government employees who were unable to cast their postal vote on the designated days last week for the presidential election were allowed to cast their vote on Wednesday the national election commission said that officials can cast their votes today as well the poll body added that those government employees who do not cast their postal WS Within These two days will not have further opportunities for them to exercise their franchise postal voters were urged to visit the district election office or the divisional secretary where their workplace is located to cast their votes postal voting for over 7 lak1 12,000 government employees and Armed Forces Staff was allowed on 4th 5ifth and 6th of September postal Department officials had said that over 80% votes were received by them during their designated days Sri Lanka votes on 21st September to elect the ninth executive president in the first elections after the economic crisis witness in 2022 incumbent President Ronald vickram sing opposition leader Sajid premadasa and leftist leader anura kumara D are seen as Front Runners in the election all right let's go across to Columbo where DD India Dr Ahmed muin faruki is joining us live Dr faruki last day of postal voting in Sri Lanka in fact for people who could not would special two days were given to them tell us how has been the turnout and and which district had the highest number of postal votes uh good morning abishek and very good morning to all our viewers uh it's been a fantastic morning today however yes you're right uh postal voting which was conducted last week on 4th Fifth and 6th of September uh those uh those were the resignated days for the government officials and the tri forces officials uh however today and yesterday have been designated as special days for those who missed out on those four fourth fifth and 6th September votings uh the postal voting percentage had been stated that uh on those first three days the voting was more than 80% by the postal Department officials saying that those many votes have been received already by them uh the complete turnout we will get to know uh after uh the completion of the voting days uh today as well so uh the entire details will be uh uh you know brought out by the election commission and the postal Department later today hopefully by the evening abish okay uh presidential election to be held on 21st of this month uh closed contest on the Cs tell us who are The Front Runners uh Raja pakha's son Victor pasing is also fighting an uphill battle who are uh the Front Runners abishek it is a very very close fight this time around you know usually Sri Lanka has seen uh a straight fight between two candidates and uh uh the the the winner has normally directly in the first round of counting it self secured more than 50% of the preferential votes the preferential system here is that a voter has to exercise one of the either one option or the three options as for his choice uh numbering them as one two and three and uh uh in case there is no uh candidate who secures 50% then the second round of counting goes ahead in which the second and third preferential votes will also be counted baring the first two candidates so uh this time around it appears like there's going to be a very very close fight there are three primary contenders there's also uh uh a candidate from slpp the son of mahinda rajap Paka namul rajaka so there is going to be uh some amount of lack of clarity as of now but some clarity might emerge as we further go into the voting week so uh right now it's a little difficult to call but yes incumbent president ran Vikram Singa he is seeking a reelection uh basing on the the kind of delivery that he has done over the last 2 years to bring the Sri Lankan economy some to some amount of uh stability that is one second is the opposition leader sjit premadasa who is being seen as an alternative uh he has been talking viously and directly with regard to the hardship that people have been facing and thirdly the leftist leader anur kumaraya it has been a trend always that the leftist parties have not secured more than 3% or 4% of votes in all the elections but this time around he has has been drawing huge support from the youth uh in fact his rallies have been uh flowing uh very well and uh it it appears that uh uh he might increase his vote share from what he has secured earlier uh in fact he has been talking about a complete revamp of the system uh a complete change in uh the system which he calls as corrupt and uh uh wants to bring about uh some some sort of a systemic change so these three have been the main front run candidates Nal Raja Paka he is the candidate from slpp so he might also cash in on the loyal vote base that slpp has abish okay uh you're saying it will be uh we are expecting a closed fight but what are people saying and also what do you think will be the major challenges for the new president see the uh people have been saying uh uh you know that that their uh uh favorite candidate should emerge and win uh they have been talking about uh various issues that have been plaguing Sri Lanka over the last several years one of the most important one being the allegations of corruption there had been uh charges that uh certain Corrupt Practices by the administration had led to uh you know the economy crumbling that was one part of it the second part was uh a huge amount of uh Reliance had been done on uh uh projects which were uh which which were taken on credit lines from China so a lot of uh uh answerability has to be there with regard to how uh the next governments will have to plan their uh you know debt management uh going into the next 5 years so uh there are lots of challenges and people assume that their candidate will be the best person who will uh you know be able to handle these challenges and take the island nations economy into a safer position uh however as of now uh the the lines are drawn and uh it's very very divided as of now uh it's a very fragmented kind of a scenario the entire Island it it is having you know a faith that their candidate will emerge as Victorious but as I said it is too early to call as of now the earlier surveys had indicated that no candidate would secure 50% in the first round itself abish all right Dr faruki we leave it at that for the time being but we'll keep taking updates from you