Indian news outlet did not report Sri Lankan presidential candidate's 'victory'

Published on September 12, 2024 at 09:56
3 min read
By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka

An edited image of an Indian news broadcast has been shared repeatedly online alongside a false claim it showed Sri Lankan opposition candidate Sajith Premadasa had won the island nation's upcoming presidential elections. The image was manipulated from footage originally aired by the Indian news channel WION (World Is One News).

"Indian Today, Our congratulations to the 9th executive president Sajith Premadasa," read the Sinhala-language Facebook post on September 5.

The post was shared alongside a screenshot of what appeared to be a television report, with the faces of presidential candidates Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake shown in the background. A purported vote percentage for each candidate was superimposed below their faces.

The Sinhala-language overlaid text at the top and the bottom of the image read "Sajith Premadasa's victory reported by International media."

Screenshot of the false post, taken on September 11, 2024

A similar false claim was also shared here and here.

Sri Lanka will vote for a new president on September 21, 2024, the first polls since ex-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was toppled by protests during the island's worse economic crisis two years ago. Postal voting -- reserved for government employees -- was held from September 4 to 6 (archived link).

A record 39 candidates are running for this year's presidential elections (archived link).

Wickremesinghe, 75, faces a daunting challenge from 57-year-old career politician Premadasa, the parliamentary leader of the opposition, as well as from leftist leader Dissanayake, 55, whose National People's Power (NPP) coalition is popular among the young.

However, the TV report image was altered to include the purported vote percentages.

Doctored image

A keyword search for the logo in the bottom left-hand corner of the edited image found the verified YouTube account for World Is One News (WION), an Indian-English language media outlet (archived links here and here).

Another keyword search found WION's original news report about Sri Lanka's presidential election on August 28, 2024 (archived link).

The news report introduced the three main election candidates and their respective stances on various issues, including the $2.9 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund to stabilise the economy (archived link).

The report also mentioned another presidential candidate, Namal Rajapaksa, son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, a former president and prime minister.

WION's report did not say Premadasa had topped any election surveys or presidential polls.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the original video report (right):

Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and and the original video report (right)

The video report also did not include any numbers or percentages to indicate the proportion of votes for each candidate.

In response to the false posts, WION's managing editor Rabin Sharma told AFP: "The grab you sent is doctored and disinformation".

Saman Sri Rathnayake, commissioner general of elections at the Sri Lanka Elections Commission previously told AFP that it has "not issued any approval" for opinion polls or surveys ahead of the election.

AFP has previously debunked misinformation about the Sri Lankan presidential elections here, here and here.

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