COLOMBO: Sri Lankan lawmakers have elected six-time Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as president, in a move expected to set off more protests in the crisis-hit country.
After a closely contested election, Wickremesinghe secured 134 while his main rival Dullas Alahapperuma secured 82 votes.
The third candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has only secured the three votes from his own party.
225 lawmakers were held eligible to vote in the presidential election.
Sri Lanka’s acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe will be the country’s next president until 2024.
Earlier, former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had offered his resignation after fleeing the country to Singapore.
The president first flew to the Maldives after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his official residence in the capital Colombo.
The economy in Sri Lanka is bracing for a sharp contraction due to the unavailability of basic inputs for production, an 80 per cent depreciation of the currency since March 2022, coupled with a lack of foreign reserves and the country’s failure to meet its international debt obligations. (With input from agencies)
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