IHP’s Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) MRP estimates of Presidential Election voting intent in July 2023 confirms a steady rise in support for President Ranil Wickremesinghe to 19% of likely voters, but he remains well behind NPP/JVP leader AK Dissanayake and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa at 39% and 33% respectively. Estimates are associated with a margin of error of 1–4%.

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The trends in July largely maintain the pattern from previous months, but the latest data more strongly supports the recent up trend in support for President Wickremesinghe. They also suggest that recent gains in his support have been at the expense of SJB leader Sajith Premadasa.

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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 by random digit dialling of mobile numbers, and others coming from a national panel of respondents 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 SLOTS interviews to estimate voting in a particular month.
The July 2023 MRP estimates are based on 466 interviews conducted in July 2023, and 12,269 interviews conducted overall from 1 October 2021–13 August 2023, with a margin of error assessed as 2–4% for AK Dissanayake and Sajith Premadasa, and 1–3% for the other two potential candidates. All estimates are adjusted to ensure the sample matches the national population with respect to age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, geographical location, and voting in the 2019 Presidential and 2020 General Elections.

Funding

The SLOTS has 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, but the sponsors play no role in the study design, analysis, or interpretation of findings. Interested parties can contact IHP for more detailed data and results.