Presidential 2024: Dissanayake doubles Wickremesinghe's support in early polls

Opposition leaders are ahead in early polls for Sri Lanka's presidential election, with a significant lead over the current president, who at the last UNP conference called on his party members to prepare for the 2024 elections.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - A poll on the next presidential elections in Sri Lanka has revealed that left-wing leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake is leading with 46% of the vote, ahead of Sajith Premadasa who reaches 29% and the current president Ranil Wickremesinghe stuck at 17%.

The survey was conducted by the Institute for Health Policy (IHP), the Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) and the Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) with 599 interviews conducted in September 2023 for a total of 13,431 conducted overall from October 1, 2021 to October 11, 2023.

The method used ensures that the sample matches the entire population with respect to age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, geographic location, and vote in the 2019 presidential and 2020 general elections.

The results showed that support for Dissanayake among voters has increased by 7% since August and, as a result, the Marxist-Leninist group Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is leading the electoral race.

“We combined interviews with a national sample of adults, aged 18 and over, reached through random dialing of mobile numbers and others from a national panel of interviewees previously recruited through a random selection,” he explained the IHP outlining the survey methodology.

To compile statistics of this relevance, SLOTS was funded primarily by the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research and the Asia Foundation in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, on October 21, President Ranil Wickremesinghe announced the holding of presidential elections to be held next year, followed by parliamentary elections and provincial council elections in 2025.