 Dissanayake was heavily defeated by Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga who swept the polls, winning in all but one of the 160 polling divisions.Dissanayake received 2,715,283 votes (35.91%), the lowest share for a major party candidate in any Sri Lankan presidential election.Dissanayake left politics thereafter and devoted herself to her family, the Gamini Dissanayake Foundation and the Gamini Dissanayake Institute of Technology and Vocational Studies.