MUSCAT: The incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been elected as the new president of the country, the Sri Lankan Parliament has announced.
Wickremesinghe was among the top three candidates for the Presidential election which was held in the crisis-marred island nation on Wednesday.
The other two candidates were SLPP parliamentarian Dullas Alahaperuma and National People’s Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
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Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had offered his resignation after fleeing the country to Singapore. The president first flew to the Maldives after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his official residence in the capital Colombo.
The economy in Sri Lanka is bracing for a sharp contraction due to the unavailability of basic inputs for production, an 80 per cent depreciation of the currency since March 2022, coupled with a lack of foreign reserves and the country’s failure to meet its international debt obligations.
The economic crisis which is the worst in Sri Lanka’s history has prompted an acute shortage of essential items like fuel.
