Sri Lankans have voted in a parliamentary election that's key for their new, Marxist-leaning president to consolidate his party’s power and follow through on promises of economic recovery

The JVP-NPP combine sweeps the Rajapaksa stronghold in the south, and the Tamil hardline areas in the north and reduces the traditional parties to a mere single-digit number in the parliament

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’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.

Counting of votes in the Sri Lankan snap elections is underway as the country’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake seeks to increase NPP’s power in the parliament. The results show Dissanayake heading

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's sweeping coalition election win this week underlined widening support for his leftist policies, but he faces the test of steering the nation's recovery from a financial crisis with an inexperienced set of lawmakers.

By Uditha Jayasinghe and Sudipto Ganguly COLOMBO (Reuters) -Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's leftist coalition won a thumping victory in a snap general election, gaining power to push through his plans to fight poverty and graft in the island nation recovering from a financial meltdown.

Sri Lankan president's party has secured a parliamentary majority, official election results show. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events