Sri Lanka’s parliament on Wednesday elected six-time prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as the new president to replace Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country after mobs stormed the presidential palace last week.
Official results showed that Wickremesinghe received 134 votes in a parliamentary ballot in which three candidates competed. His main rival, former Education Minister Dulas Alhaberoma, received 82 votes, while the third candidate, leftist Anura Desanaime, received only three votes, giving Wickremesinghe the absolute majority of votes.
“Our divisions are now over,” Wickremesinghe said in a brief speech to parliament, urging Alhaberoma “to join me and work together to get the country out of the crisis we are facing.”
He said he hoped he would be sworn in later Wednesday in a simple ceremony inside the heavily guarded Parliament House. After the 73-year-old Wickremesinghe won the presidency, the current government is automatically dissolved and the new president will choose a prime minister to form a new government.
Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abiwardana considered that the world’s attention is focused on the Sri Lankan legislature, which elected a president to lead the country for the remainder of Rajapaksa’s presidential term, which ends in November 2024.
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