UPDATE: The election is effectively over. The challenger Maithripala Sirisena is comfortably ahead in counting (though final results have not been issued). The incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa has conceded and left Temple Trees. Congratulations to all Sri Lankans for holding a free and fair election.
This is our rough guide to how to watch/follow the election results for the Sri Lankan Presidential Election of 2015.
tl;dr
– check
#PresPollSL
(Twitter) or the
official elections website
. Also check out
Derana’s live results
and the
Daily Mirror’s
. Derana’s is easier to use.
Who gets it first: Newsfirst
Who looks the best: Derana
What’s the most fun: #PresPollSL
Firstly, when can you expect election results? We don’t know. Last election (2010) the result was known by early in the morning the next day. The Elections Commission website says to start awaiting results at 8 PM tonight (Thursday the 8th Jan) but the Commissioner has said the final may be as late as Friday evening .
Websites
You can literally keep refreshing the
Sri Lanka Elections page
(the official source), but we suspect that site will slow down.
Ada Derana has a
dedicated elections page
. You can also check the
Daily Mirror
,
News First
or any of the mainstream media’s websites.
The Republic Square
is interesting and independent and will be updating throughout the night as well.
Social Networks
The most fun place to be is probably Twitter. Just follow the hashtag
#PresPollSL
(just click the link). It’s not official or edited (ie there might be some false alarms), but overall you can get news faster and better than anywhere else. In the same way, Facebook or any of your social networks should be transmitting this news in real-time.
Some credible local and connected journalists to follow on Twitter are
Azzam Ameen
(BBC),
Dinouk Colombage
(Al Jazeera),
Mandana Ismail
, and
Amantha Perera
(TIME, etc).
Apps
Most of the TV/radio stations have apps (just search for their name). There is also a dedicated election tracker this time, which shows only the results. It’s called Sri Lanka Elections and it’s only available for Android, check the
Google Play store
. It’s free. It pulls the data from the Elections Commission website (how we don’t know). We obviously haven’t tried it yet, but it looks interesting and may be more efficient than refreshing that website over and over.
SMS
This is probably the most robust and easiest way to get the news. The Daily Mirror, Derana, radio stations and all major news providers have SMS news services. You can sign up for them using SMS, using the shortcodes here:
Dialog
,
Mobitel
,
Etisalat
,
Airtel
,
Hutch
. They only cost about Rs. 30 per month and are generally quite useful.
Mainstream Media
Radio
Every radio station will be reporting the election results. You can just listen to your preferred radio station, everybody will cover it. You can stream the radio stations online as well, and most of them have apps. If you check
TuneIn you can stream most of them
.
Each station also has their own streaming somewhere, but we figure the one source above is easier. TuneIn is an app as well.
TV
You can also watch your preferred TV station, though the Elections Commission has
threatened to ban state media
Rupavahini and ITN from airing results for various elections law violations.
The safest bet is probably Derana or Swarnavahi or whatever TV station you’re used to. In the end they will probably all show the results.
You can also stream most of the TV stations online. Most of them also have apps (search your app store)
That’s just a selection, you can
find more stations here
, or just turn on your TV.
Conclusion
Honestly, it is harder to stay away from the results than it is to find them. The biggest question remains when, but officially stuff should start trickling out tonight.
Throughout this all we hope that you and yours are safe and well and can enjoy this de facto holiday. If you’re hungry we’ve collected a list of
delivery places that should be open
. Again, stay safe.
