Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a Marxist, was chosen as Sri Lanka’s next president on Sunday. Voters trusted the 55-year-old candidate to combat corruption and support the country’s shaky economic recovery in the wake of its worst financial crisis in decades.
Dissanayake, who does not have political lineage like several of his opponents in the presidential race, led the whole vote-counting process and defeated opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe to become Sri Lanka’s tenth president.
The election served as a referendum on Wickremesinghe as well. Wickremesinghe oversaw the shaky economic recovery of the massively indebted country following a collapse in 2022, but his attempt to run for government again was hampered by the austerity policies that were essential to that recovery. He got third place with 17% of the vote.
Dissanayake received 5.6 million votes, or 42.3% of the total, a significant increase over the 3% he received in the last 2019 presidential election.
At 32.8%, Premadasa came in second following Sunday’s initial vote-counting round.
For the first time in the history of Sri Lanka, the presidential contest was resolved by a second round of voting when the front-runners were unable to secure the necessary 50% of the vote to be crowned winners.
