In a historic first, Sri Lanka’s presidential election on Sunday went into a second round of counting after no candidate secured over 50 per cent vote needed to win the election. The latest results showed Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party’s broader front National People’s Power (NPP) had won 39.

Left-leaning politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake has won Sri Lanka’s presidential election after a historic second round of counting. No candidate won more than 50% of the total votes in the first round, where Dissanayake got 42.31% while his closest rival, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, got 32.76%.