Nation places religion in Anura Kumara Dissanayake to battle corruption and bolster a fragile economic system after the worst monetary disaster in many years.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been declared the winner of the presidential election, in keeping with the Election Fee of Sri Lanka.
The Marxist-leaning Dissanayake, 55, chief of the Folks’s Liberation Entrance alliance, received the presidency with 42.31 % of the vote in Saturday’s election, the fee stated on Sunday.
Opposition chief Sajith Premadasa took second place with 32.76 % of the vote.
Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe – who took workplace on the peak of the 2022 financial collapse and imposed powerful austerity insurance policies per the phrases of an IMF bailout – took a distant third place with 17.27 % of the votes polled.
Wickremesinghe has but to concede, however International Minister Ali Sabry stated it was clear that Dissanayaka had received.
It was the primary time in Sri Lanka’s historical past that the presidential race was determined by a second spherical of counting after the highest two candidates didn’t win the necessary 50 % of votes.
Based on election fee officers, the president-elect Dissanayake is anticipated to be sworn in on Monday on the colonial-era President Secretariat in the primary metropolis of Colombo.
Reporting from Colombo, Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez stated Dissanayake “brings a sure sort of vitality and charisma” to the presidency.
“Dissanayake was very decisive and assured within the pledges he made carrying the hopes of the individuals of the nation. There was a specific amount of power as he walked right into a room,” she stated, referring to his marketing campaign.
“Dissanayake has been in parliament for 20 years and he has seen the way in which the political recreation is performed however what he’s claiming is that he brings to it a brand new lease of life that underneath his management will deliver a brand new wind of change,” Fernandez added.