COLOMBO - Chairman of the Election Commission R.M.A.L. Ratnayake said on Sunday that Sri Lanka's presidential election entered the second round of counting.

He said that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People's Power (NPP) and Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawega (SJB) will be qualified in the race.

Incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe failed in the first round.

Ratnayake said none of the candidates had obtained over 50 percent of votes in the election, and a second count was necessary as per the Elections Act of 1981.

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All counting centers have been asked to go for the second and third preference count and send in the result to the commission, he added.

This was the first presidential run-off in Sri Lanka's election history, local media said. 

Voting for the presidential election started at 7 am local time on Saturday in over 13,000 polling stations and officially ended at 4 pm on the same day. 

A comprehensive security arrangement was established across the country, with about 63,000 police officers being assigned to election duties to ensure a smooth and secure voting process, according to local media reports.

Over 17 million people were eligible to vote in the presidential election, and it was reported that the overall voter turnout by 2 pm exceeded 60 percent.

A total of 38 candidates contest in this year's presidential election, and a candidate needs more than 50 percent of the votes to win the election. If no candidate obtains such a majority, it could lead to a second round of vote counting, where the second or third preferences of voters are counted for the top two candidates.

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Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who won the presidential election in November 2019, resigned from the post in July 2022 amid a severe economic crisis in the South Asian country.

Wickremesinghe was elected president in an election held in parliament following Rajapaksa's resignation.