Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2019 — Guide to winning Gampaha District
Couple of day’s back I wrote an article on voter dynamics and predictions of Colombo district with respect to the 2019 Sri Lankan presidential election scheduled to be held on 16th November. Based on the feedback received, I’m writing the second article focusing on the Gampaha district.
General Statistics and Past Presidential Elections
According to official elector registration statistics of 2018, Gampaha district has the largest voter population in Sri Lanka with 1,751,892 eligible voters, which accounts for 11% of the Sri Lankan voter base.
Considering past presidential elections, Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1988 remains the only candidate to lose the presidency after winning Gampaha. However, it is important to note the low voter turnout (~55%) in that election due to chaotic situation in the country.
After Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga returned to politics in 1993, Gampaha again became a Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) strong hold. In the 1994 presidential election she secured 64.7% of the overall vote, which remains the best performance by a presidential candidate in Gampaha.
Mahinda Rajapaksa also won the district comfortably in 2005 (54.8%) and 2010 (61.7%), however he was beaten by Maithripala Sirisena in 2015 when he contested for a third term as president. Result of the 2015 election clearly indicate the strength of SLFP in Gampaha, as even with the combined efforts of UNP, JVP, JHU, SLMC and a portion of SLFP which included former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, NDF candidate Maithripala Sirisena only managed to get 4660 votes (only 0.3%) more than Mahinda Rajapaksa.
With respect to, third party candidates, Nandana Gunathilake of JVP performed the best by securing 4.3% of the votes in 1999 election.
Polling Divisions and Voter Behavior
Gampaha district consist of 13 polling divisions and those can be classified in to 3 groups based on the voter behavior in the past elections as given below.
As mentioned, SLPP candidate is expected to win in Gampaha, Dompe, Mahara, Attanagalla, Minuwangoda, Divulapitiya, Mirigama and Biyagama comfortably. In addition, he is likely to get a favorable result in Kelaniya. These areas will account for 62.9% of the overall voter population of the district.
Traditionally, UNP has dominated in Wattala and Negombo divisions where majority of the voters are Roman Catholic. However, the intelligence and leadership failure that led to Easter attacks in April 2019, will have a significant impact on the UNP candidate’s chances in these two constituencies. That said, the political drama around UNP candidacy has enabled Sajith Premadasa to distance himself from party leadership and his involvement in rebuilding affected churches has enabled him to maintain a positive image among the voters in the area. Therefore, we can expect large portion of the UNP base in the area, especially the older demographic which has voted for UNP candidates throughout their lives to vote for Sajith in November. However, a considerable portion younger voters in the area are likely to deflect from UNP and vote for either Gotabhaya or an alternative candidate like General Senanayake.
Katana and Ja-Ela polling divisions are somewhat hard to predict. Similarly to Wattala and Negambo these two divisions also have a high proportion of Roman Catholic voters (especially Ja-Ela), however, these divisions has not been biased towards a single party in past elections. Interestingly, identical to Ratmalana in Colombo district, candidates that won Katana and Ja-Ela in past elections has always went on to win the election. Therefore, Katana and Ja-Ela can be considered as “Bellwether Polling Divisions of Sri Lanka”.
Key Success Factors to win in Gampaha
For Sajith Premadasa
As explained in the previous section, it is highly unlikely that Sajith will triumph in Gampaha District. That said, given the size of the voter base in Gampaha, he cannot afford to lose by a substantial margin. Therefore the focus of his campaign should be to minimize the impact of the defeat. To do that he needs to;
· Win close to 55% of the votes in Wattala and Negombo
· Secure at least ~45% of the votes from Katana and Ja-Ela
· Gain support from disgruntled SLFP leaders (e.g., Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga) to minimize the loses in SLPP dominant polling divisions
Challenges faced in achieving these goals;
· Retaining Roman Catholic voters in areas affected by Easter terror attacks would be challenging. Especially, young voters who are angry with the current government are more likely to vote for alternative candidates.
· The voter turnout in the areas affected by the Easter terror attack can be lower than usual.
For Gotabhaya Rajapaksa
Given the voter dynamics in Gampaha, Gotabhaya will most probably win the district. However, when considering the island wide results, he will need to win big in Gampaha to compensate for the expect losses in Northern and Eastern provinces. Therefore his goal should be to;
· Receive more than 60% of the votes in Dompe, Gampaha, Mahara, Attanagalla, Minuwangoda, Divulapitiya and Mirigama divisions
· Secure close to 55% of the vote in Biyagama and Kelaniya
· Win Katana and Ja-Ela
· Overall, try to get at least 150,000 — 200,000 votes more than Sajith
Challenges faced in achieving these goals;
· As mentioned earlier high profile political crossovers from SLFP to UNP might have an impact on the winning margins. Crossovers will not impact the ultimate result, however, high profile crossovers has the potential to reduce 25,000–50,000 votes from the district, which might be crucial in the final outcome of the election.
Impact of the third party candidates
Overtime, JVP has gathered a 5% — 6% fixed voter base in Gampaha district. Anura Kumara Dissanayaka will receive the fixed vote and a portion of the swing vote. Therefore, he should be able to gain close to 7% of the overall votes.
In addition, General Mahesh Senanayake is expected to secure a meaningful portion of votes in the Wattala, Negombo, Katana and Ja-Ela divisions enabling him to receive at least 1% — 1.5% of the overall vote in the district.
Predicted result for Gampaha District
Similar to the previous article, I tried to predict the outcome of each polling division using past results and current political conditions and the results are given below.
However, both candidates have the chance to improve their positions further by 2% — 4% in the next three weeks depending on the strategies used.
What do you think will happen? Like to know more about your opinion on this topic.