Sri Lanka, Democratic socialist republic has a multi party system, with two dominant parties, and elects on national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. The president is elected for a six year term by the people. The Parliament has 225 members, elected for a six year term, 196 members elected in multi-seat constituencies through proportional representation system where each party is allocated a number of seats from the quota for each district according to the proportion of the total vote that party obtains in the district. The other 29 which is called the national list are appointed by each party secretary according to the island wide proportional vote the party obtains. Sri Lanka has a multi party system, with two dominant parties, and with extreme difficulty for anybody to achieve electoral success under the banner of any other party. List of Candidates running for the 2010 presidential elections according to official election registrations.