Sri Lankans voted in a parliamentary election Thursday that is key for the country's new, Marxist-leaning president to consolidate his party's power and follow through on promises of economic recovery.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the presidential candidate from National People's Power, addresses his supporters during an election campaign rally ahead of presidential election, on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 18, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer

The NPP won 107 seats, receiving almost 62 per cent or 6.8 million votes in Thursday’s election, putting them past the majority mark in the parliament, latest results on the Election Commission of Sri Lanka‘s website showed. A two-third majority appeared within reach of the coalition.

Sri Lanka began counting votes cast on Thursday in a snap general election that will decide if the Indian Ocean island nation will give its new leftist president greater legislative power to help the poor as it recovers from a financial meltdown.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake thanked voters Friday for delivering his leftist coalition a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections that repudiated establishment parties blamed for triggering an economic crisis.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s coalition took an early lead in parliamentary elections seen as a test of the leftist leader’s ambitious pledges to combat corruption and change the terms of an unpopular International Monetary Fund bailout.

Party of Sri Lanka's new Marxist-leaning president is leading in parliamentary elections, results show. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events

Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power Party won at least 123 of the 225 seats in parliament, according to partial results released by the Elections Commission.

Sri Lanka's president's coalition, the National People's Power (NPP) posted an early lead in a parliamentary election, local television channel Ada Derana said on Thursday. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake called for snap a general election in September to seek a mandate to take forward his policies in the island nation struggling to emerge from a severe financial crisis.