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Sri Lanka’s parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted six-time prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as president to replace Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the crisis-wracked country and resigned last week.
Official results showed Wickremesinghe polled 134 votes in a three-cornered Sri Lankan parliamentary vote, with his main opponent Dullas Alahapperuma getting 82 and leftist Anura Dissanayake just three – giving him an absolute majority on first preferences.
“Ranil Wickremesinghe has been elected as the eighth executive president under the constitution,” the secretary general of parliament said after counting finished.
The win for Wickremesinghe, opposed by many ordinary Sri Lankans, could lead to more demonstrations by people furious with the ruling elite for the mismanagement that has plunged the country into a severe economic crisis.
Wickremesinghe, a six-time prime minister, became acting president last week after then-incumbent Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Singapore when protesters seized his official residence and office, roamed the corridors, used his gym and swam in his pool.
Protesters also burned down Wickremesinghe’s private home and stormed his office, but failed to oust him. Wickremesinghe said this week that by the time he joined the current government as prime minister in May, the economy had already collapsed.
Sri Lankans blame the Rajapaksas – a political dynasty that had seven family members in government as of April – for the economic crisis. Their decisions to cut taxes and ban chemical fertilisers, which damaged crops, decimated the debt-laden economy, leaving it particularly vulnerable before the pandemic hit the critical tourism industry.
>> Read more: Rise and fall of political dynasty that brought Sri Lanka to its knees
The economic crisis has left Sri Lanka’s 22 million people struggling with shortages of essentials including medicine, fuel and food while the government negotiates a bailout with the International Monetary Fund. And the resulting political crisis has left worries about whether a new government will be enough to fix the economy and placate a public furious at its politicians’ failures.
Wickremesinghe, 73, has wide experience in diplomatic and international affairs and has been leading the crucial IMF talks. Serving in a double role as the finance minister, he has delivered weekly addresses in Parliament cautioning that the path out of the crisis would be difficult, while also pledging to overhaul a government that increasingly has concentrated power under the presidency.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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