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PRESS RELEASEEMBARGOED UNTILFOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT

Date: 30 January 2024
Time: 12:01 AM Sri Lanka Time

Dalreen Barthelot
Email: dalreen ‘at’ ihp.lkTO CONTACT LEAD INVESTIGATOR
Dr. Ravi Rannan-Eliya
Email: ravi ‘at’ ihp.lk Twitter: @ravirannaneliya

AK Dissanayake leads in Presidential Election
voting preferences on 50%, with SajithPremadasa on 33% of all adults in December
IHP MRP Presidential Election Voting Intentions Update
December 2023
IHP’s Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) MRP estimates of Presidential Election
voting intent in December 2023 show NPP/JVP leader AK Dissanayake on 50% of all adults,
ahead of Sajith Premadasa, the SJB leader, with 33%, Pres. Ranil Wickremesinghe on 9%
and a generic SLPP candidate on 8%.

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Support for the NPP/JVP leader has increased 14 points since mid-2023, with the December
estimates suggesting a possible drop in that month. Support for SJB leader Sajith Premadasa
has increased 3 points since Sep. 2023 with a rising trend in that time. Support for Pres. Ranil
Wickremesinghe has declined in the same six months.

This update is for all adults and is based on a revised MRP model using data from 14,941
interviews conducted from Oct. 2021 to 7 January 2024, with 522 interviews during Dec. 2023.
IHP will resume reporting voting intent amongst likely voters at a later date. 100 model
iterations were run to capture model uncertainty. Margins of error are assessed 1–4% forDecember.

Related Reports
Institute for Health Policy, March 2023, “IHP MRP Voting Intentions Update February 2023:
Voters consolidate around the NPP/JVP, SJB and ITAK, with NPP/JVP taking a clear lead”,
SLOTS Report #2023-06
Available at: https://www.ihp.lk/publications/docs/SLOTSReport202306.pdf
Institute for Health Policy, May 2023, “Support for AK Dissanayake slips to 45%, but stillleads Sajith Premadasa (37%). IHP Presidential Election Voting Intentions Update April2023”.
Available at: https://ihp.lk/news/pres_doc/IHPPressRelease20230526.pdfInstitute for Health Policy, June 2023, “Pres. Ranil Wickremesinghe & SLPP continue to gain
support in May. IHP Presidential Election Voting Intentions Update May 2023”.
Available at: https://ihp.lk/news/pres_doc/IHPPressRelease202306302.pdf
Institute for Health Policy, July 2023, “Little change in Presidential voting intention in June
2023: AKD 40%, Sajith 35%, Ranil 15%. IHP/SLOTS MRP Presidential Election Voting
Intention Update June 2023”.
Available at: https://ihp.lk/news/pres_doc/IHPPressRelease20230728.pdf

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Institute for Health Policy, August 2023, “Pres. Ranil Wickremesinghe continues to gain
support in a potential Presidential poll. IHP/SLOTS MRP Presidential Election Voting
Intention Update July 2023”.
Available at: https://ihp.lk/news/pres_doc/IHPPressRelease20230822.pdf
Institute for Health Policy, September 2023, “AK Dissanayake (38) and Sajith Premadasa(35) continue to lead in Presidential Election voting preferences. IHP/SLOTS MRPPresidential Election Voting Intention Update August 2023”.
Available at: https://ihp.lk/news/pres_doc/IHPPressRelease20230926.pdf
Institute for Health Policy, November 2023, “AK Dissanayake consolidates lead inPresidential Election voting intent. IHP/SLOTS MRP Presidential Election Voting Intention
Update October 2023”.
Available at: https://ihp.lk/news/pres_doc/IHPPressRelease20231124.pdf

About IHP
IHP is an independent, non-partisan research centre based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The
SLOTS lead investigator is Dr Ravi Rannan-Eliya of IHP, who has trained in public opinion
polling at Harvard University and has conducted numerous surveys over three decades.

Methodology
SLOTS combines interviews from a national sample of adults (ages 18 and over) reached byrandom digit dialling of mobile numbers, and others coming from a national panel ofrespondents who were previously recruited through random selection. IHP estimates voting
intent using an adaptation of Multilevel Regression and Post-Stratification (MRP), with multiple
imputation to account for uncertainties in its modelling, exploiting data from all SLOTSinterviews to estimate voting in a particular month.
The December 2023 MRP estimates are based on 522 interviews conducted in December
2023, and 14,941 interviews conducted overall from 1 October 2021–7 January 2024, with amargin of error assessed as 3–4% for AK Dissanayake, Sajith Premadasa and 1–2% for Ranil
Wickremesinghe and the other potential candidate. All estimates are adjusted to ensure thesample matches the national population with respect to age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomicstatus, education, geographical location, and voting in the 2019 Presidential and 2020 GeneralElections.

Funding
The SLOTS survey has previously been funded by the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, the UK
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), The Asia Foundation in Sri Lanka,and others. Current fieldwork is financed by the IHP Public Interest Research Fund and others.
The sponsors play no role in the study design, analysis, or interpretation of findings.
Furthermore, the survey findings do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of past andpresent funders. Interested parties can contact IHP for more detailed data and results.

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