Sri Lanka Provincial Council Elections 2012

Abstract

This report features a comprehensive analysis of the Provincial Council Elections held in September 2012, detailing the performance of major political parties, voting trends, and the emerging political landscape in post-war Sri Lanka. The voting environment, political campaigns and the various electoral politics preceding the election are also scrutinized to ascertain the level of transparency and accountability of the electoral system. The report includes data on previous elections to determine the evolution in socio-economic preferences related to voting patterns and also highlights the evolution of political preferences using a variety of visual data tools. The analysis of the election results suggests that the government’s popularity is on the wane from its high in the early 2010-2011 period. However, it still dominated the North Central Province despite droughts and associated discontents and its decline in vote share was strongly significant only in the Eastern Province. The report also finds signs that candidates closely associated with the UNP leader lost popularity. Further, the Eastern Province elections were keenly contested, with some evidence of increased ethnic-based voting patterns and no party gaining an absolute majority. Sinhala votes in the Trincomalee district shifted from the JVP to the more extreme Nationalist party, the NFF. Over all, the JVP shows a declining trend in its vote share across all provinces. The UPFA’s coalition strategy exhibited a shift, with a preference for ex-post rather than ex-ante coalitions.