General Election Forecast: Gampaha District
If UNP fails to secure the required 5% minimum vote percentage to win a seat in Gampaha, they will end up helping JVP backed NMPP to win their 2nd seat. If the UNP were not divided and contested as a single party with SJB, this seat would definitely be a UNP seat.
Gampaha is the most populated district in Sri Lanka with 1,785,964 registered voters. The district currently elects 18 of the 225 members of the Sri Lankan Parliament.
Gampaha is a Sri Lanka Freedom Party(SLFP) stronghold. Aththanagalla is the home to the Bandaranayake family which is one of the oldest political families in Sri Lanka. The family produced many politicians throughout the generations including three Prime Ministers and one President of Sri Lanka.
In the last parliamentary election, the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) won the district by getting 577,004 (47.13%) votes. Former President Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaratunga put her support behind the UNFGG in 2015. But In the last presidential election, Gotabhaya Rajapaksha won the district very easily with 855,870 (59.28%) votes.
Gampaha in General Election 2020
Numbers.lk conducted a national online poll between 20th July to 27th of July of 2020. We got 1,844 responses overall and 206 of them are from Gampaha district.
Since it’s an online poll it’s difficult to achieve the random sampling of demographics that an election poll requires. Since we used the swing of voters from one party to another from the presidential election to the general election to forecast the outcome of the election.
For example, according to our poll, 84.27% present of the people who voted for SLPP in the presidential election will again vote for SLPP in the General Election, 6.40% said they will vote for Samagi Jana Balawegaya(SJB) and 4.71% said their vote is for JVP powered NMPP. Likewise, we analysed swing of the voters for other parties and came to the below conclusion.
If UNP fails to secure the required 5% minimum vote percentage to win a seat in Gampaha, they will end up helping JVP backed NMPP to win their 2nd seat. If the UNP were not divided and contested as a single party with SJB, this seat would definitely be a UNP seat.
Key Takeaways:
SLPP will win 11seats. SJB - 5 & NMPP 2.
UNP falls short of the 5% minimum vote percentage limit which is required to be eligible for a seat.
UNP could end-up helping JVP backed NMPP win their 2nd seat from Gampaha.
Arjuna Ranathunga and Ruwan Wejewardana may lose their seats in the parliament.
According to our poll, UNP will get around 4.18% percentage of total votes. Since the margin of error of the poll is 3%, They could end up getting up to 7.18% of the votes. That means UNP still has a chance to win a seat.
If UNP were to win a seat Arjuna Ranathunga was the one who is in front of the preferential vote race. He will be the one who is going to parliament.
Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka will get the highest number of preferential votes for SJB in Gampaha with 59% of SJB voters casting a preferential vote for him.
Preferential vote race in SLPP is a dead heat between Prasanna Ranathunga vs Dr Nalaka Godahewa. The race is a tossup at the stage.
Vijitha Herath is leading the preferential vote race in NMPP.
Ape Jana Balaya Party which is contesting under the symbol of the Flag has some support (around 1%) in the district.
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