Mahinda Rajapaksa: 30%
Maithripala Sirisena: 70%
There seems to be a lot of speculation that incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa will lose the upcoming presidential election on January 8th to Maithripala Sirisena. There have been a number of defections from his party to that of opponent. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any reliable polls.
My sense is that Sirisena will probably win, but it would not be at all surprising if Rajapaksa won. The conventional wisdom appears to be that Sirisena will win. According to one story,
A survey by The Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a Colombo-based think tank, found that 76 percent of respondents believed Sirisena would win if elections were held immediately.
However, incumbents have won 100% of the presidential elections in Sri Lanka since they started in 1988 (although this election might be closer than previous elections). Rajapaksa seems to have strong media support (from the state-controlled media), Many foreign observers would probably prefer Sirisena to win, and that might make the coverage of the election slightly biased.
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