Sri Lanka election goes to historic second count
For the first time in the country's history, Sri Lanka's presidential election has gone into a second round of counting after no single candidate won more than 50% of the vote. The election commission will now count voters' second and third choices for president - people were asked to mark up to three candidates in order of preference during the election. The first round, which saw the counting of people's primary choice of candidate, had Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a leftist politician in the lead with 42.31%. Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa is in second place with 32.76%. In a press conference, the election commission said that all other candidates apart from Dissanayake and Premadasa have been eliminated The eliminated candidates' ballots will now be checked to see if secondary or third preferential votes were given to the two frontrunners. To be declared the winner, Sri Lanka's election laws say that a candidate must win 50% plus a single vote. The ele...