UN refugee agency did not 'conduct survey on Sri Lankan presidential election'

A fabricated survey on Sri Lanka's upcoming presidential election attributed to the UN refugee agency UNHCR surfaced on social media platforms in May 2024. The agency told AFP it did not conducted the poll, while a top official for Sri Lanka's election commission also said it was not genuine.

The purported survey showing how Sri Lankans would vote for prospective presidential candidates in an election scheduled for September or October 2024 emerged in a Sinhala-language Facebook post published on May 13 (archived link).

"Sajith - 36%, Pohottuwa - 35%, UNP - 16 %, Anura - 11 %", read the post, which has since been deleted.

Sajith Premadasa is the leader of Sri Lanka's main opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).  

Pohottuwa refers to Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the party of former president of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, while the incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe leads the United National Party (UNP). 

Anura Kumara Dissanayake is leader of the National People's Power. 

The post claimed the UNHCR had used money allocated for refugees to conduct the survey of Sri Lankans ahead of the island's presidential election  -- although the post questioned whether the poll was genuine.

"I have serious doubts regarding the United Nations Commission on Refugees' right to conduct a survey on the presidential election of Sri Lanka, spending money allocated for refugees," it said.

"But, in to my experience, United Nations agencies are more corrupt and filled with irregularities when compared with non-governmental organisations.

The first comment on the Facebook post included a Google Drive link which included the false survey report.

A similar false claim was shared elsewhere on Facebook here , here and here.

The Colombo office of UNHCR said it was not involved in the survey.

"We have seen a fake report on the presidential elections in Sri Lanka being falsely linked to UNHCR," the UN agency told AFP on May 14.

"This is a fabricated document and has nothing to do with UNHCR's humanitarian mandate nor our work in Sri Lanka."

It also posted a statement on social media which said the survey was false (archived link).

Saman Sri Ratnayake, commissioner general of elections at the Sri Lankan Election Commission told AFP: "(We have) not issued any approval or any permission to anyone to do this sort of opinion polls or surveys.

"Elections are an internal matter of our people. It is not appropriate for countries like ours to see this sort of surveys or opinion polls when an election is near. These statistics are not real".

Visual clues

Meanwhile, clues in the fabricated survey indicate it is false.

Firstly, Kolonnawa is incorrectly listed as a polling division in the District of Gampaha.

Moreover, the survey does not include Gampaha and Dompe polling divisions of Gampaha district. Official polling divisions of that district can be found here. (archived link)

In the fabricated report, genuine percentages from the 2019 presidential election have been republished in a false context.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the incorrectly repurposed percentages (left) and the correctly used percentages (right):

The results from 2019 were published by Sri Lanka's election commission and local media outlets including Ada Derana (archived links here and here).