Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2001

12th Sri Lankan parliamentary election

← 2000 5 December 2001 2004 →
All 225 seats to the Parliament of Sri Lanka 113 seats were needed for a majority
Turnout	76.03%
First party Second party   Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe Chandrika Kumaratunga Party United National Front People's Alliance Leader since 1994 1994 Leader's seat Colombo District n/a Last election 89 Seats, 40.22% 107 Seats, 45.11% Seats won 109 77 Seat change 20 30 Popular vote 4,086,026 3,330,815 Percentage 45.62% 37.19%
Winners of polling divisions. UNF in green and PA in blue.
Prime Minister before election Ratnasiri Wickremanayake People's Alliance Prime Minister-designate Ranil Wickremesinghe United National Front

Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
People's Alliance

Ranil Wickremesinghe
United National Front

Parliamentary elections were held in Sri Lanka on December 5, 2001, just a little over a year after the last elections in October 2000.

The People's Alliance (PA) government faced a blow when most of the SLMC MPs left the coalition. President Chandrika Kumaratunga tried to recruit the JVP to replace it, but this angered several PA MPs, thirteen of which defected to the opposition. A no-confidence motion was prepared; to forestall this, Kumaratunga called the election.

More than 1,300 incidents of election violence were reported during the campaign. [1]. Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake was nearly killed by a suicide bomber. Overall, 60 people were killed in election-related violence, including 14 on polling day. [2]

Kumaratunga's People's Alliance lost the resulting general election, which saw the United National Front win the legislative power. The UNP's leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe, became the new prime minister.

Having a President and Prime Minister from different parties proved to be unstable, and Parliament was dissolved again in 2004, leading to yet another general election.