The approval rating of the government polled at 65% in early-February 2026, in the latest round of the Gallup style “Mood of the Nation” poll by Verité Research. With a ±3 percentage point error margin, the approval rating has remained statistically stable from the 62% polled a year ago. The polling partner was Vanguard Survey (Pvt) Ltd.The disapproval rating remained low and unchanged from what it was in the previous poll in February 2025.
For the first time in the poll’s four-year history, the share of those who rated current economic conditions as “good” or “excellent” exceeded those who rated them as “poor” Perceptions of the economic outlook also improved. Those who said the economy was “getting better” increased to 64% from 55% one year ago. The proportion who said it was “getting worse” was largely unchanged. Those with no-opinion reduced, which points to more people having become more certain and more optimistic about the country’s economic direction.
All of the sentiments on the economy are aggregated into an Economic Confidence Indexranging from minus 100 to +100. The index registered +36, a huge improvement from +14 a year ago.
Additionally, a majority (59%) said they were satisfied with “the way things are going” in the country. This marks the first time in the last four-years of polling that satisfaction levels have risen above 50%.
In various other aspects where the present government was evaluated against past governments, the highest positive evaluation was for reducing drugs and crime—even more so than for reducing corruption.
The regularly conductedMood of the Nation poll is part of the Syndicated Surveys instrument of Verité Research to enrich its regular macro political briefings. This instrument allows other organisations to add survey questions to check sentiments of Sri Lankans. More details on the polling results are available to clients.
The latest poll was based on a nationally representative, multi-stage, randomised sample of 1,048 Sri Lankan adults from separate households, and was conducted from 24 January 2026 to 03 February 2026. It was designed to have a maximum sampling error margin of ±3.0 pp at a 95% confidence level.