Nawalage Stanley Dias of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has been elected as the Mayor of the Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia Municipal Council, which was won by the UNP at the local government polls.

He was elected with 23 votes in an open ballot held this morning while Sunethra Ranasinghe of the United National Party (UNP) received only 21 votes.

The United National Party claimed victory at the Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia Municipal Council at the 2018 Local Authorities Election after polling 36,985 votes in total while the Podujana Peramuna came in second with 36,029 votes. 

Of the 48 total seats in the council, the UNP and the SLPP each received 19 seats while the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) secured 6 seats. The JVP was allocated 4 seats. 

Due to no party receiving a majority in the municipal council, the members convened at 9.00am this morning to elect a Mayor with all members unanimously agreeing on an open ballot. 

During the ballot, 4 of the UPFA members voted for the SLPP candidate while the other 2 voted for the UNP candidate. The 3 JVP members abstained from voting. 

Accordingly, the SLPP’s Stanley Dias was elected as the Mayor of the Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia Municipal Council.

In the open ballot held to elect the Deputy Mayor of the council, Keerthi Udawatta who was elected from the list of the UPFA received 25 votes and Ruwan Kithsiri Liyanagunawardena of the UNP obtained 19 votes. 

All 19 members of the Podujana Peramuna had voted for the UPFA members Keerthi Udawatta, who was elected Deputy mayor.