Courtesy Yahoo News

The European Union said it had not conducted a survey that showed Sri Lanka’s opposition alliance was projected to win in the upcoming presidential election, contrary to false claims shared in news reports and on social media. A spokesperson for the EU told AFP the information was “false.”

“According to a new survey by the European Union, the compass will win in the presidential election,” read the Sinhala-language headline of a news article published by Sri Lankan website LankaeNews on July 16. 

The opposition coalition National People’s Power (NPP) is often referred to as “the compass” because of the party’s symbol (archived link). Its candidate is Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

The news report went on to say that 53 percent of the purported survey’s respondents preferred NPP, while 24 percent picked Sajith Premadasa, leader of Sri Lanka’s main opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna — the party of deposed president Gotabaya Rajapaksa — got six percent. It has yet to field any candidate as of July 23.

The outlet also published the report in English, and shared the false claim in both languages on its Facebook page here and here.

Local media outlet PFP News published an article with the same false claim here.

Similar claims were also shared on Facebook here and here.

The constitution mandates the Election Commission of Sri Lanka to hold the presidential elections between September 17 and October 16 (archived link).

The election commission said that it would announce the date of the presidential election before the end of this month. 

It will be the first presidential election in the South Asian country since it was hit by an economic crisis in 2022, one which triggered widespread protests and led to the resignation of Rajapaksa. 

But the EU said it had not conducted such a survey. 

Fabricated survey

Lars Bredal, EU’s Chargé d’affaires of the delegation to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, told AFP on July 19 that the bloc was not involved in any such election polls survey.

“The European Union has not conducted election polls survey, the information stating otherwise is false,” he said.

The bloc’s mission in Colombo also posted a statement on social media that similarly denied it had conducted election polls survey in Sri Lanka (archived link).

Saman Sri Rathnayake, commissioner general of elections at the Sri Lanka Elections Commission has previously told AFP that they “have not issued any approval or any permission to anyone to do this sort of opinion polls or surveys”.

AFP has previously debunked claims that the UN refugee agency UNHCR had conducted a survey on the upcoming election.