Colombo. The candidate of the left coalition, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, won the presidential elections in Sri Lanka, two years after a serious financial crisis that imposed an unpopular austerity policy in the country, the Electoral Commission announced this Sunday.
Dissanayaka, 55, leader of the People’s Liberation Front (JVP), a formerly marginal Marxist party, garnered 42.3 percent of the vote in Saturday’s election.
“Victory belongs to all of us,” Dissanayaka wrote on the social network X. “Together, we are ready to rewrite Sri Lanka’s history,” he added.
The head of the opposition in Parliament Sajith Premadasa, 57 years old – from the center-right – came in second position with 32.7 percentage points.
Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office during the 2022 economic collapse and imposed harsh austerity policies under the terms of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, received just 17.2 percent of the vote.
Wickremesinghe, 75, acknowledged his defeat this Sunday. “With much love and respect for this nation that I love, I leave its future in the hands of the new president,” he declared in a statement.
For his part, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry stated that Dissanayaka’s victory was clear.
“Although I campaigned hard for President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the people of Sri Lanka have made their decision and I fully respect the mandate they gave to Anura Kumara Dissanayaka,” Sabry declared on the X social network.
The inauguration ceremony of the new president-elect is scheduled for Monday morning at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo, according to the Electoral Commission.
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– 2024-09-30 08:50:31
