On September 21, 2024, Sri Lanka will vote to elect a new president, a government notice said on Friday, an important contest that is expected to decide the future of reforms in the South Asian island nation weathering its worst financial crisis in decades.
The notice added, ‘Nominations for the election have to be submitted on August 15’. President Ranil Wickremesinghe is expected to run in the election, with almost 17 million of Sri Lanka’s 22 million population eligible to vote. Wickremesinghe, 75, took office in July 2022 after protests caused by the financial crisis forced his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and later resign.
Parliament elected Wickremesinghe to serve out the rest of the five year-term vacated by Rajapaksa who was elected in November 2019.
Senior researcher for Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives said, ‘This is a critical time for Sri Lanka’. He further added, ‘An election being called is extremely important for democracy but now the election commission must be allowed to do what they are mandated to do. Having a free and fair election is essential’.
Helped by a $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme, Wickremesinghe has stitched back the shattered economy, bringing down inflation from a steep 70% in September 2022 to 1.7% in June, strengthening the rupee and rebuilding previously decimated foreign exchange reserves.
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