Sri Lanka prepares to welcome new President

On September 22, the Sri Lankan Election Commission officially declared Anura Kumara Dissanayake as the country's president-elect, following the election that took place the day before.

Sri Lankan President-elect Kumara Dissanayake. (Source: NDTV)

Al Jazeera television network quoted the commission as saying that Mr. Dissanayaka, leader of the Marxist National People's Power Party (NPP), won the presidential election on September 21 with 42.31% of the votes.

Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa got the second highest number of votes (with 32.76% support) and outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe got the third highest number of votes (receiving 17.27% support).

An election commission official said Mr Dissanayaka is expected to be sworn in on the morning of September 23.

This is the first election since Sri Lanka's economy collapsed in 2022 due to a severe foreign currency shortage, leaving the Indian Ocean island nation unable to pay for imports of essential goods such as fuel, medicine and gas.

The election comes as Sri Lanka is imposing tax hikes and austerity measures to meet the conditions of a $2.9 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), leaving millions struggling to make ends meet.

Voting took place from 7am to 4pm at more than 13,400 polling stations in 22 constituencies, with a turnout of 75%. This was down from 83% in the 2019 election, said Director General of Elections Saman Sri Ratnayaka.

After the polls closed, the South Asian nation’s government imposed a curfew from 10 p.m. on September 21 to 6 a.m. on September 22 to conduct the vote count to prevent any unwanted incidents. There were 38 candidates running in the election, but no female candidates.

The election attracted nearly 8,000 domestic and foreign observers, including 116 international observers.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/sri-lanka-chuan-bi-don-tong-thong-moi-287326.html