Cash-strapped Sri Lanka is voting on Saturday for its next president, effectively holding a referendum on an unpopular International Monetary Fund-backed austerity plan implemented after the island nation’s unprecedented financial crisis. President Ranil Wickremesinghe is fighting hard for a new mandate to continue measures that have stabilised the economy and ended months of food, fuel and medicine shortages. His two-year term restored calm to the streets after recession-fuelled civil unrest in 2022 saw thousands storm the compound of his predecessor, who promptly fled the country.
“We must continue with reforms to end bankruptcy,” Wickremesinghe, 75, said at his final rally in the capital Colombo this week.
“Decide whether you want to go back to the era of terror or the era of progress.”
But Wickremesinghe’s tax hikes and other measures, imposed as conditions of a $2.9 billion IMF bailout, are leaving millions struggling to make ends meet.
“The country needs new leadership. We need change,” newspaper seller Sunil, who did not give his surname, told AFP.
Wickremesinghe is likely to lose to one of two tough rivals, including Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, leader of a once-fringe Marxist party with a violent past.
Sri Lanka’s crisis has proved an opportunity for Dissanayaka, 55, who has seen a surge in support based on his pledge to change the island’s “corrupt” political culture.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa (57), the son of a former president killed in 1993 during the country’s decades-long civil war, is also expected to perform strongly.
“A lot of voters are trying to send a strong message… that they are very disappointed with the way this country is being governed,” Murtaza Jafferji of think tank Advocata told AFP.
A total of 39 people are contesting the election, including a 79-year-old candidate who remains on the ballot despite dying of a heart attack last month.
‘Wild Elephant’
More than 17 million people are eligible to vote in the election, and more than 63,000 police personnel are deployed to secure polling stations and vote-counting centres.
“We also have anti-riot squads ready in case of any trouble, but so far everything is peaceful,” police spokesman Nihal Talduwa said.
“In some areas, we have had to deploy police to protect polling stations from wild animals, especially wild elephants.”
Dozens of people queued outside polling stations in Colombo before voting began.
Voting closes at 4:00 pm (1030 GMT) and counting will begin on Saturday evening.
Results are expected on Sunday, but if the match is close the official result may be delayed.
Schools were closed on Friday so they could be converted into polling stations, where more than 200,000 civil servants will be deployed to conduct the vote.
‘The situation is still not good’
Economic issues dominated the eight-week election campaign, and there was widespread public anger at the hardships suffered since the peak of the crisis two years ago.
Sri Lanka’s poverty rate is set to double to 25 per cent between 2021 and 2022, official data showed, adding more than 2.5 million people to those already living on less than $3.65 a day.
Experts have warned that Sri Lanka’s economy is still fragile as repayments on the island’s $46 billion foreign debt have not yet begun after the government defaulted on loans in 2022.
The IMF said that the reforms implemented by the Wickremesinghe government have started yielding benefits and the pace of growth is gradually returning.
“A lot of progress has been made,” the IMF’s Julie Kozak told reporters in Washington last week.
“But the country is still not out of the woods.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)