Sri Lanka elections 2020: Rajapaksas set towards landslide victory

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's party is on course to secure a massive victory in the parliamentary elections.

As per the latest updates on Thursday, over 60 per cent of the 11.3 million votes were counted and Rajapaksas' Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) had 57 per cent of the votes. 

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Results showed that the party had won 72 out of the 98 seats that have declared their results and set for a two-thirds majority in the the 225-member parliament.

Also read | Sri Lankan president's party ahead in election vote count

"Results so far indicate an excellent victory for the SLPP," the president said on Twitter. 

His older brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already congratulated him for victory that looks inevitable now. 

The results have been very disappointing for opposition parties and ex-PM Ranil Wickremesinghe's party has failed to win any seat so far.

His party had 106 seats in the outgoing parliament.

Another party headed by Sajith Premadasa that split from Wikremesinghe's party secured 20 per cent of the votes and is emerging as a distant second. 

The final results are expected late on Thursday. 

The elections that were delayed twice because of the coronavirus outbreak still managed to bring a turnout of 70 per cent out of 16 million voters. 

Rajapaksas follow a Sinhalese nationalistic politics and their support rose immensely following 2019 Easter bombings by Muslim extremists that killed 279 people. 

They are also seen as heroes to end decades-long Tamil separatists war in 2009 through muscular military powers.

(With AFP inputs)