Colombo, July 26 (EFE).- Sri Lanka will hold a presidential election on Sep. 21, its first since mass protests in the island nation in 2022, the election commission announced on Friday.
The commission announced the date in an official notice, in which it also set Aug. 15 as the deadline for nominations.
These are the first presidential elections to be held since massive protests in 2022 against the financial crisis in the country.
Protesters stormed government buildings, including Rajapaksa’s official residence in central Colombo, forcing the president to flee secretly at midnight.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over from Rajapaksa, is expected to contest as an independent candidate and not as the head of the United National Party that he leads, his director of international relations, Dinouk Colombage, confirmed to EFE.
One of his rivals could be the opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), who has received his party’s backing to stand for election although he has not yet officially announced his candidacy.
Sri Lanka’s former army chief, Sarath Fonseka, 73, announced on Thursday that he would also stand for election.
“For 76 years, we have been led by an inept political group that has led us to bankruptcy. For Sri Lanka to grow, we need to Crush Corruption. We need to leverage our natural resources to boost income generation,” Fonseka said on X.
The general served as army chief from 2005 to 2009 and is considered by many to be a national hero, having led troops to victory against the rebels in 2009.
However, he was jailed for two years for treason.
He later forayed into politics, where he served as a parliamentarian from 2016 to 2020, including two years as regional development minister between 2016 and 2018.
The recovery of the Sri Lankan economy is expected to be the main theme of the campaign, given the fragile state of the island, which is mired in a serious financial crisis that forces it to rely on bailouts from the International Monetary Fund. EFE
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