At stake in this election:      

• 225 seats in the Parliament. The new Parliament is scheduled to meet September 1, 2015.

Description of government structure:

• Chief of State: President Maithripala SIRISENA
• Head of Government: President Maithripala SIRISENA
• Assembly: Sri Lanka has a unicameral Parliament with 225 seats. 

Description of electoral system:

• The President is elected through a contingent vote system to serve a 6-year term.*
• In the Parliament 225 members are elected by open list proportional representation in multi-member constituencies to serve 6-year terms.***

* Under the contingent vote system, voters may rank up to three candidates. If no candidate wins a majority in the first round of counting, ballots whose first rankings are eliminated candidates are redistributed to the next-ranked candidates on those ballots. The winner is the candidate with the most votes after this second round of counting.

*** Parties must clear a threshold of one-eighth of votes to win seats in the respective constituency. Each voter may cast three preference votes. There are 22 multi-member constituencies containing 196 seats and one nationwide constituency with 29 seats.

Election Note:

• The election is being held 10 months ahead of the original schedule.[1] 

Main parties in the electoral race[2],[3]:

• Party: United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) / එක්සත් ජනතා නිදහස් සන්ධානය
• Leader: Maithripala SIRISENA
• Seats won in last election: 144
• Party: United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) / එක්සත් යහපාලන ජාතික පෙරමුණ
• Leader: Ranil WICKRAMASINGHE
• Seats won in last election: 60
• Party: Tamil National Alliance (TNA) /  தமிழ்த் தேசியக் கூட்டமைப்பு
• Leader: Mavai SENATHIRAJAH
• Seats won in last election: 14
• Party: Democratic National Alliance / ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදී පක්ෂයේ
• Leader: Sarath FONSEKA
• Seats won in last election: 7

Last election:

• The last election for the Parliament was held on 8 April 2010.  There were 14,088,500 registered voters for the election.  The United People's Freedom Alliance won 144 seats (of 225) or 60.66% of the vote, the United National Party won 60 seats, the Tamil National Alliance won 14 seats, and the Democratic National Alliance won 7 seats.  Results can be found here. 

Population and number of registered voters:

• Population: 21,866,445 (July 2014 est.)[4]
• Registered Voters: 15,044,490[5]

Gender Data:

• Female Population: 11,172,825[6]
• Is Sri Lanka a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (17 July 1980)[7]
• Has Sri Lanka ratified CEDAW: Yes (5 October 1981)[8]
• Gender Quota:  No[9]
• Female Candidates in this election: Yes
• Number of Female Legislators: 13 (6%) of 225 seats in Parliament[10]
• Human Development Index (HDI) Position: 73[11]
• Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: Medium[12]

Disability Data:

• Is Sri Lanka a signatory to CRPD: Yes (30 March 2007)[13]
• Has Sri Lanka ratified CRPD: No[14]
• Population with a disability: 3,279,967[15]