Voting ends in Sri Lanka’s first presidential election since economic crash

Voting has ended in Sri Lanka’s presidential election as the country seeks to recover from an economic crisis and political upheaval that triggered mass protests and forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee.

The election on Saturday is widely seen as a referendum on his successor Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has restored some stability through austerity policies backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The measures, including tax hikes, have left millions struggling to make ends meet and are unpopular with many voters.

Turnout was at nearly 70 percent an hour before polling stations closed at 4pm (10:30 GMT), an election commission official said, citing provisional figures, the AFP news agency reported.

The record for voter turnout in a Sri Lankan presidential election was set in 2019 at 83.72 percent.

“I’ve taken this country out of bankruptcy,” Wickremesinghe said after casting his ballot.“I will now deliver Sri Lanka a developed economy, developed social system and developed political system,” said the 75-year-old veteran politician who has been prime minister multiple times.

“Decide if you want to go back to the period of terror, or progress.”

The economic crisis has boosted support for Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The party led two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s that left more than 80,000 people dead, and it won less than 4 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary elections.

But Sri Lanka’s crisis has proven an opportunity for the 55-year-old Dissanayaka, who has seen a surge of support based on his pledge to change the island’s “corrupt” political culture.

Fellow opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, 57, the son of a former president assassinated in 1993 during the country’s decades-long civil war, is also expected to make a strong showing.