Sri Lankan election goes to second round of counting

Sri Lanka's presidential election has gone into a second round of vote counting for the first time in history as the incumbent liberal president Ranil Wickremesinghe has been eliminated. Login or signup to continue reading Marxist lawmaker Anura Kumara Dissanayake leads early official results in Sri Lanka's presidential election, according to tallies released on Sunday by the Election Commission. The election, contested by 38 candidates, was largely a three-way race between Dissanayake, Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa.

The election held on Saturday is crucial as the country seeks to recover from the worst economic crisis in its history and the resulting political upheaval. Dissanayake, whose pro-working class and anti-political elite campaigning made him popular among youth, was leading with 47 per cent of total votes counted, followed by Premadasa with nearly 28 per cent and Wickremesinghe with 15 per cent. It was a strong showing for Dissanayake, who won just over three per cent of votes in a previous presidential election in 2019, and suggests voters are fatigued with the old political guard, which has been accused of pushing Sri Lanka toward economic instability.



Wickremesinghe's Foreign Minister Ali Sabry congratulated Dissanayake on the social platform X and said he hopes Dissanayake will "lead with a commitment to transparency, integrity, and the long-term good of the country". "I wish Mr. Dissanayake and his team every success in their efforts to lead Sri Lanka forward," Sabry added.

However, neither Wickremesinghe nor Premadasa has conceded defeat. The election was a virtual referendum on Wickremesinghe's leadership of a fragile recovery, including restructuring Sri Lanka's debt under an International Monetary Fund bailout program after it defaulted in 2022. Dissanayake, 55, leads the left-leaning coalition National People's Power, an umbrella of civil society groups, professionals, Buddhist clergy and students.

No major incidents were reported during the vote but authorities declared a countrywide curfew until midday Sunday as a precaution, police said. The government announced Thursday that it passed the final hurdle in debt restructuring by reaching an agreement in principle with private bond holders. At the time of its default, Sri Lanka's local and foreign debt totaled $US83 billion ($A122 billion).

The government says it has now restructured more than $US17 billion ($A25 billion). Despite a significant improvement in key economic figures, Sri Lankans are struggling with high taxes and living costs. Both Premadasa and Dissanayake have said they would renegotiate the IMF deal to make austerity measures more bearable.

Wickremesinghe has warned that any move to alter the basics of the agreement could delay the release of a fourth tranche of nearly $US3 billion that is crucial to maintaining stability. Sri Lanka's economic crisis resulted largely from excessive borrowing on projects that did not generate revenue. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government's insistence on using scarce foreign reserves to prop up the currency, the rupee, contributed to the economy's free fall.

The economic collapse brought a severe shortage of essentials such as medicine, food, cooking gas and fuel, with people spending days waiting in line to obtain them. It led to rioting in which protesters took over key buildings including the president's house, his office and the prime minister's office, forcing then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign. Wickremesinghe was elected by a parliamentary vote in July 2022 to cover the remainder of Rajapaksa's five-year term.

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