The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) would secure 6,298,270 votes with a percentage of 53.84 percent and 133 parliamentary seats achieving a landslide victory at Wednesday’s General Election, according to research conducted by Pradeep Chanaka who holds a degree in Banking and Insurance Management from the Sabaragamuwa University.
According to Chanaka’s prediction, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) would obtain a total number of 3,336,428 votes (28.52 percent), United National Party (UNP) 636,052 (5.44 percent) and the National Peoples Power (NPP) 429,788 (3.67 percent). After his accurate prediction on last year’s Presidential Election; many newspapers carried articles on the researcher.
He predicts the all island composition of Parliament would consist of SLPP (133 seats), SJB (58 seats), ITAK (17 seats), UNP (9 seats), NPP (4 seats), SLMC (1 seat), EPDP (1 seat), UPA (1 seat), and NC (1 seat).
Chanaka said the SLPP would consolidate its two-thirds majority in 17 districts except the five districts in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The SLPP is not contesting the Jaffna district. This time, ITAK and all other Tamil parties contesting in the five districts in the North and the East will get only 17 seats.
Chanaka said the top three candidates who will obtain the highest number of preferential votes would be SLPP Kurunegala district candidate Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (517,322 votes), SLPP Gampaha district candidate Prasanna Ranatunga (504,859) and SLPP Colombo district candidate Wimal Weerawansa (403,522).
SJB leader Sajith Premadsa would obtain 307,724 votes, the highest number from the SJB while Patali Champika Ranawaka will get 171,285 votes. The researcher has predicted that UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would secure only 69,457 votes while Anura Kumara Dissanayake will get only 48,208. It is evident that the SJB led by Sajith Premadasa would get the second place while the UNP led by Ranil Wickremesinghe would secure the third place.
Of the 22 electoral districts, the SLPP would win 18 and the ITAK three (Jaffna, Vanni and Batticaloa). The SJB would win only the Trincomalee electoral district. The SLPP would win 132 from 160 polling divisions, ITAK 18 and the SJB 10.
Generally, the Colombo and the suburbs are considered UNP strongholds. The research has predicted that the SLPP would secure 11 seats, SJB six seats, UNP one seat and NPP one seat in the Colombo district.
In the Gampaha district, the SLPP would get 12 seats, SJB four seats, the UNP one seat and the NPP one seat. The SLPP will get seven seats, the SJB two seats and the UNP one seat in the Kalutara district.
In the Kandy district, the SLPP will win seven seats and the SJB five seats. According to research, the SLPP would get 4 seats, SJB 3 seats and UNP 1 seat in the Nuwara Eliya district.
Chanaka said as the first step of the analysis, he identified the number of polling divisions separately. Each polling division’s votes have been categorised into four such as floating votes, new votes, traditional votes (based on the party) and minority votes using a formula.
After the categorisation, assumptions for each polling division were made according to the current situation of the division and have been proven using political, economic and social scenarios in the past.
He said using the proven assumptions and the vote categorisation, the number of votes for each party and the preferences of each candidate have been calculated polling-division wise. Again the result has been proved using a sample method. After the sample results, the calculated results and the results obtained through the sample method were compared. If there was any mismatch between the results, the final result was decided after combining both results.
He said the prediction made by him on the 2019 Presidential Election that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would achieve a landslide victory was 99 percent accurate. There was only a difference of 11,885 votes between his predicted number of votes and the actual number of votes.