Colombo: Ranil Wickremesinghe was on Wednesday elected the new President of Sri Lanka, which has been facing massive protests amid an unprecedented economic crisis. Wickremesinghe was serving as acting President after Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned after fleeing the country.
He won 134 of the total 219 valid votes. The other candidates in the fray were ruling party lawmaker Dullas Alahapperuma and leader of the Leftist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna party Anura Kumara Dissanayaka.
Protesters see the 73-year-old Wickremesinghe as a Rajapaksa ally and had also demanded his resignation as Prime Minister. As acting President, he gave police and security forces sweeping powers to crack down on protesters.
“Ranil is emerging as the law-and-order candidate,” Tamil MP Dharmalingam Sithadthan told news agency AFP.
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