Cabinet approves amending laws to enable Sri Lankans overseas to cast their votes

16 September 2025 03:06 pm Views - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}} 8 Bookmark

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Colombo, Sep 16 (Daily Mirror)- The Cabinet of Ministers has granted approval for the Minister of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government to take action to appoint a committee to study particulars relevant to amending the laws and formulating new laws to safeguard the voting rights of Sri Lankan citizens overseas.

The Committee will comprise officials from the Elections Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism, the Ministry of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government as well as from the other Ministries and institutions.

As per Article 3 of the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, the sovereignty rights reserved with people is used in an election as per the provisions of the 4th Constitution.

The right to vote is reserved only by the citizens living within Sri Lanka and having registered their names in the electoral register as per the elections law. According to the current elections law there is no provision to secure any method to cast votes for Sri Lankan citizens overseas or no law has been formulated in this regard.

However, many Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh, the Philippines etc. have formulated legal strategies to enable their citizens living overseas to cast their votes and it has been recognised as a timely requirement to amend such types of laws for Sri Lanka as well.

Comments - 8

Zak Tuesday, 16 September 2025 03:55 PM

Long overdue. Thank you NPP

2 16

Ram P Tuesday, 16 September 2025 04:04 PM

This is a good move. Voting rights must be given to all citizens working/residing overseas and all the dual citizens working /residng ocerseas. It will be good to confirm in the same law how they can cast their vote/s at any election

3 17

Ganesh Tuesday, 16 September 2025 05:04 PM

Those holding Sri Lankan Citizenship only should be allowed, no dual or foreign citizens should be allowed. We dont want to suffer like the like two times.

17 13

Lion Tuesday, 16 September 2025 05:21 PM

Very good move

4 12

Ifam Tuesday, 16 September 2025 05:44 PM

Good, However, this isn't a priority for overseas Sri Lankans. The utmost priority is to implement a benefit and retirement mechanism for the overseas Sri Lankans who are core contributors for the Economy. The foreign remittance is and will play a pivotal part for the economy in future for Sri Lanka, in order to motivate and move funds to Sri Lanka, the government need to come up with a solution, as this is a long pending matter which needs to addressed. The only Government we can rely to implement this is the current Government.

4 16

james Tuesday, 16 September 2025 08:39 PM

There should be a requirement to live in Sri Lanka for 6 months of the year in order to be eligible to vote here. You don't want overseas sri lankns who never steps foot here to vote. Dual citizens should be disqualified from voting too. I doubt NPP will do such a thing as overseers voters are one of the biggest voting blocks.

15 10

Lkf Tuesday, 16 September 2025 08:53 PM

New laws moving with reality. A good move.

4 13

Lk Tuesday, 16 September 2025 09:59 PM

Any ways 90% of overseas people are NPP supporters anyway : It is good for the country anyhow It does not matter who rule as long as good governance is in place , as long as the country is moving forward and progress is seen and people are happy :

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