1994 Sri Lankan presidential election

1994 Sri Lankan presidential election

9 November 1994
Turnout	70.47% ( 15.15 pp)
Nominee Chandrika Kumaratunga Srima Dissanayake Party SLFP UNP Alliance People's Alliance — Popular vote 4,709,205 2,715,283 Percentage 62.28% 35.91%
Winners of polling divisions. Kumaratunga in blue and Dissanayake in green.
President before election Dingiri Banda Wijetunga UNP Elected President Chandrika Kumaratunga SLFP

The 1994 Sri Lankan presidential election was the 3rd presidential election, held on 9 November 1994. Nominations were accepted on 7 October 1994 and voter turnout was 70.47%. Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga of the governing People's Alliance was elected, receiving 62% of all votes cast, becoming the first female president of Sri Lanka.

Background

President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated in 1993 by the Tamil Tigers and was succeeded by the Prime Minister, Dingiri Banda Wijetunga. President Wijetunga chose not to run in the 1994 election; therefore the United National Party selected Leader of the Opposition Gamini Dissanayake as their candidate. His main challenger was Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga of the People's Alliance, whose party had won the parliamentary elections earlier in 1994.

On 24 October 1994, during his presidential campaign, Gamini Dissanayake was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers. His name on the ballot paper was replaced by his wife Srima Dissanayake, thus making the election the first Sri Lankan presidential election in which both main party candidates were women.

Results

Kumaratunga won the election by a record margin with 62.28% of the vote.

Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Chandrika Kumaratunga	People's Alliance	4,709,205	62.28
	Srima Dissanayake	United National Party	2,715,283	35.91
	Hudson Samarasinghe	Independent	58,886	0.78
	Harischandra Wijayatunga	Sinhalaye Mahasammatha Bhoomiputra Pakshaya	32,651	0.43
	A. J. Ranasinghe	Independent	22,752	0.30
	Nihal Galappaththi	Sri Lanka Progressive Front	22,749	0.30
Total			7,561,526	100.00
Valid votes			7,561,526	98.03
Invalid/blank votes			151,706	1.97
Total votes			7,713,232	100.00
Registered voters/turnout			10,945,065	70.47
Source: Election Commission

References

• "Result of Presidential Election 1994" (PDF). Department of Elections, Sri Lanka. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-04.
• "1994 Sri Lanka Presidential Election Results". LankaNewspapers.com. 20 October 2022.
• "1994 - Presidential Election". Manthree.com. Archived from the original on 2010-01-30.