Sri Lanka’s election commission said on Friday that the first presidential election since an unprecedented economic crisis and widespread unrest will be held in September.
The election will be the first test of public mood since the 2022 recession, which left the island nation with months of food, fuel and medicine shortages.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe (75), who took office after his predecessor was forced to flee the country amid street protests, has given clear indications that he plans to contest the election.
He will face at least two rivals who are campaigning against the austerity measures his government implemented to satisfy an International Monetary Fund bailout.
The five-week campaign announced by the commission will end with voting on Sept. 21, as the country still grapples with widespread discontent over a fragile economic recovery and the cost of living.
Economic issues are expected to dominate the campaign, as the country emerges from its worst recession in 2022, when gross domestic product shrank by a record 7.8 percent.
Inflation has returned to normal levels from its peak of 70 percent at the height of the crisis.
Wickremesinghe has also successfully negotiated the restructuring of Sri Lanka’s $46 billion foreign debt with bilateral lenders, including China, after the government defaulted on the loans in 2022.
But his policies to balance the government’s accounts by raising taxes and withdrawing generous utility subsidies have been extremely unpopular with the public.
Although months-long shortages of food, fuel and medicine at the height of the economic crisis are now a distant memory, many Sri Lankans say Wickremesinghe’s austerity measures have made it harder to get two meals a day.
Opposition parties have vowed to renegotiate the terms of a $2.9 billion IMF bailout negotiated by Wickremesinghe last year.
So far, the president’s main rival is Sajith Premadasa, 57, a one-time party ally who is now opposition leader.
Premadasa vowed to continue economic reforms and the IMF programme, but promised to provide relief to the public by reducing tax increases imposed by Wickremesinghe to raise state revenue.
A leftist party is also fielding its leader, former agriculture minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 55, who is campaigning against plans to privatise state companies
Wickremesinghe took office in 2022 following the government’s default after a massive mob stormed the compound of his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Rajapaksa, who was accused of plunging Sri Lanka into crisis through economic mismanagement, temporarily fled abroad and issued his resignation from Singapore.
Local elections were due to be held last year but were postponed indefinitely after the government said it did not have the funds to hold nationwide polls.
Over 17 million Sri Lankan voters above the age of 18 are eligible to vote.
The Election Commission has allocated $33 million (Rs 10 billion) for this year’s presidential election.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
