three politiciansIncluding the current interim president and former prime minister of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe, They submitted their presidential candidacy on Tuesday.It will be decided by secret ballot in the Assembly tomorrow, after former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa leaves office and leaves the country. Parliament said that in addition to Wickremesinghe, MP Dullas Alahapperuma from the ousted Rajapaksa party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and Anura Kumara Dissanayake from the left-wing NPP coalition will run for the country’s presidency.
The secret ballot by the 225 deputies that make up the Sri Lankan Parliament will take place tomorrow at 10:00 local time (4:00 GMT).
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, one of the election favourites, surprisingly announced this morning that he would not submit his candidacy, showing his support for Alahapperuma, backed by one faction of the SLPP, while another faction of that party supports Wickremesinghe. “For the sake of my country and the people I love, I’m withdrawing my candidacy for president,” Premadasa said on Twitter. The rival added that his political formation, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), “and our alliance and comrades in the opposition will work for the victory of Dullas (Alahapperuma)”.
Coming after tomorrow’s election resignation and leave the country ex-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa amid mass demonstrations. Wickremesinghe, Rajapaksa’s prime minister and interim president after the leader’s departure, declared a state of emergency yesterday, which has been criticized.
The island nation has been suffering for months medicine, food and fuel shortagesThis is partly due to massive borrowing, wrong government policies, and the impact of the Easter attacks and the pandemic on tourism. This has sparked island-wide protests since the end of March, with thousands of people taking to the streets to demand Rajapaksa’s resignation as he handles the economic crisis. On 9 July, hundreds of protesters broke into the official residences of Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe, forcing them to flee and announce their resignations. However, it’s only an announcement that Rajapaksa resigned from the post of head of state last Friday from Singapore, where he arrived the day before the Maldives after fleeing Sri Lanka on Wednesday.