The President of Sri Lanka is directly elected by voters for a five-year term.[1] Below is a list of presidential elections in Sri Lanka, including the number of votes obtained by each candidate and voter turnout.[2]
| Election | Winning candidate | Runner-up candidate | Others | Total votes | Turnout< | --Do not add the 1993 and 2022 elections to this table as they were indirect elections.--> | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Votes | % | ||||||
| 1982 | UNP | 3,450,811 | 52.91% | SLFP | 2,548,438 | 39.07% | 522,898 | 8.02% | 6,522,147 | 81.06% | |||||
| 1988 | UNP | 2,569,199 | 50.43% | SLFP | 2,289,860 | 44.95% | 235,719 | 4.63% | 5,094,778 | 55.32% | |||||
| 1994 | SLFP | 4,709,205 | 62.28% | UNP | 2,715,283 | 35.91% | 137,038 | 1.81% | 7,561,526 | 70.47% | |||||
| 1999 | SLFP | 4,312,157 | 51.12% | UNP | 3,602,748 | 42.71% | 520,849 | 6.17% | 8,435,754 | 73.31% | |||||
| 2005 | SLFP | 4,887,152 | 50.29% | UNP | 4,706,366 | 48.43% | 123,521 | 1.28% | 9,717,039 | 73.73% | |||||
| 2010 | SLFP | 6,015,934 | 57.88% | NDF | 4,173,185 | 40.14% | 204,494 | 1.97% | 10,393,613 | 74.50% | |||||
| 2015 | NDF | 6,217,162 | 51.28% | SLFP | 5,768,090 | 47.58% | 138,200 | 1.14% | 12,123,452 | 81.52% | |||||
| 2019 | SLPP | 6,924,255 | 52.25% | NDF | 5,564,239 | 41.99% | 764,005 | 5.76% | 13,252,499 | 83.72% | |||||
| 2024 | NPP | 5,634,915 | 42.30% | SJB | 4,363,035 | 32.75% | 3,321,666 | 24.95% | 13,319,616 | 79.46% | |||||
| 5,740,179 | 55.89% | 4,530,902 | 44.11% | ||||||||||||