Sri Lanka's leftist government, led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, secured the most votes in 265 out of 339 local councils in recent elections, marking its first test since sweeping national polls last year. However, the coalition fell short of an outright majority in approximately half of these councils, according to official results released on Wednesday.

The main opposition, SJB, managed to win only 14 councils, while the Tamil National Alliance, representing the country's main minority Tamil community, performed better, securing 35 councils. Notably, the parties of former presidents Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapaksa failed to gain control of a single council, though they collectively secured 1,123 of the 8,299 council seats.

Dissanayake's NPP will require support from other parties to govern roughly 130 councils where it did not achieve an absolute majority. However, the party has explicitly ruled out forming any coalitions with traditional parties. The NPP's vote share decreased to 43.3 percent, a notable drop from the 61.6 percent it garnered during the November parliamentary election. In contrast, the main opposition SJB experienced a slight increase, reaching 21.7 percent, up from 17.70 percent.

President Dissanayake, who had previously disrupted established parties to win the September presidential election, leveraged his popularity to secure the subsequent parliamentary vote two months later. Despite campaigning on a pledge to renegotiate the terms of an unpopular IMF bailout agreed upon by his predecessor, the 56-year-old has since reversed course and maintained high tariffs.

Dissanayake framed the local elections as a referendum on his six-month-old administration, emphasizing the necessity of his party controlling local councils to ensure that all levels of government are "free of corruption and endemic waste." Voter turnout was approximately 60 percent of the 17.14 million electorate, a decrease from nearly 70 percent in November and 80 percent in the September presidential vote. The campaign itself was described as uninspired, lacking prominent figures in the running.