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Sri Lanka: 4 in fray to contest prez polls
Parliament met for a brief special session to announce the vacancy in the presidency following the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Colombo: Sri Lanka’s acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe, main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa are among the four leaders who have joined the race to become the country’s next president as the lawmakers met on Saturday to start the process of electing a new president to succeed Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned after unprecedented protests against his government over the country’s economic collapse.
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Besides Wickremesinghe and Premadasa, Marxist JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Dullas Alahapperuma, a breakaway SLPP candidate, are the other two leaders who have so far announced their candidacy to contest the July 20 vote in parliament to succeed Rajapaksa for the rest of his term until November 2024 after he resigned on Thursday.
Parliament met for a brief special session on Saturday to announce the vacancy in the presidency following the resignation of Rajapaksa. Security personnel were deployed on the approach roads to parliament to prevent any unrest.
Rajapaksa, who fled to the Maldives on Wednesday and then landed in Singapore on Thursday, formally resigned on Friday, capping off a chaotic 72 hours that saw protesters storm many iconic buildings, including the president and the PM’s residences here.
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During the 13-minute special session, Dhammika Dassanayake, secretary-general of parliament, announced the vacancy for the post of president.
Dassanayake said that nominations for the election of the new president will be heard on Tuesday and if there is more than one candidate, the lawmakers will vote on Wednesday.
Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Dissanayake, 53, on Saturday officially declared his intention to contest the election.
“The main reason for this is that we feel that our party and our leader represents many of the aspirations and in fact the spirit of the people’s movement that has been taking place in our country for so long,” his party’s spokesperson Harini Amarasuriya told reporters.
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Main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) leader Premadasa, while officially declaring his intention to contest the vote, said, “Even though it is an uphill struggle, I am convinced that truth will prevail.”
The 225-member parliament is dominated by Rajapaksa’s ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party.
The ruling SLPP which officially announced its backing for Wickremesinghe, the acting president, found some resistance to its decision from within.
Its chair GL Peiris said the party should not vote for anyone other than its own member.
He said the party must back Alahapperuma, a breakaway SLPP candidate who has put himself forward to the vote.
For the first time since 1978, the crisis-hit country’s next president will be elected through a secret vote by the MPs and not through a popular mandate, following the resignation of Rajapaksa.
