Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's leftist coalition won a thumping victory in a snap general election, gaining power to push through his plans to fight poverty and graft in the island nation recovering from a financial meltdown.
The sweeping mandate, which included surprise backing from the north and east of the country which is home to the minority Tamil people, is an unprecedented vote for change and indicates that Sri Lanka is in sync on moving ahead, analysts said.
While the strong showing will strengthen political stability in the South Asian country, some uncertainty on policy direction remains due to Dissanayake's promises to try and tweak terms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue programme that bailed the country out of its economic crisis, they said.
Dissanayake, a political outsider in a country dominated by family parties for decades, comfortably won the island's presidential election in September.
But his coalition had just three seats in parliament before Thursday's snap election, prompting him to dissolve it and seek a fresh mandate.
Sri Lanka typically backs the president's party in general elections, especially if voting is held soon after a presidential vote, and it showed in the results on Friday.
"The president has a huge mandate now to carry through the reforms but also huge expectations from the people," said Bhavani Fonseka, a researcher at Colombo think tank Centre for Policy Alternatives.
"People are looking beyond the issues of the past ... people want to see a direct impact on the cost of living," she said.
Dissanayake's Marxist-leaning National People's Power (NPP) coalition won 141 seats of 196 for which direct elections were held, a two-thirds majority, Friday's ballot counting showed. Local media projected its tally would cross 150 in the 225-member parliament after more seats are distributed under a proportional seat distribution system.
The NPP secured almost 62% or almost 7 million votes in Thursday's election, up from the 42% Dissanayake won in September, indicating that he had drawn more widespread support including from minorities and built on his victory.
The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party of the Rajapaksa family, whose cohort of brothers gave Sri Lanka two presidents during a dozen years in power and had 145 seats in the outgoing legislature, was virtually wiped out, winning just two seats.
Voters directly elect 196 members to parliament from 22 constituencies under a proportional representation system. The remaining 29 seats will be distributed according to the island-wide proportional vote obtained by each party.
"We see this as a critical turning point for Sri Lanka. We expect a mandate to form a strong parliament, and we are confident the people will give us this mandate," Dissanayake said after casting his vote on Thursday.
"There is a change in Sri Lanka's political culture that started in September, which must continue."
