Ranil Wickremesinghe wins Sri Lanka’s crucial presidential vote

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s parliament elected Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the 8th Executive President on Wednesday (20) with 134 lawmakers in the 225-member parliament voting in favour of the government-backed candidate.

The new vote came after the former leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned last week from Singapore, plunging the country into deep political crisis after months-long protests against him.

The protests came after Rajapaksa’s wrong economic and agricultural policies hit the country with dollar shortages following the Central Bank printing of trillions of rupees while maintaining a soft peg against the currency.

The country is still facing shortages of fuel, cooking gas, and medicines while it is also facing a looming food shortage.

Wickremesinghe was appointed as a PM of the country for the 6th time in May although he had only one seat in the parliament. He came to parliament on a residual vote total after his party had a humiliating defeat in 2019 Presidential elections.

At the election, 223 MPs cast their votes with two abstaining making the total count of valid votes at 219.

Candidates Dallas Alhahepperuma got 82 votes and Anura Kumara Dissanayake got only three votes.
(Colombo/Jul20/2022)