Ranil Wickremesinghe, six-time Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, was sworn in on Thursday as president of the Asian country immersed in a serious economic crisisreported his office.
Wickremesinghe, 73, who was elected president on Wednesday by Parliament, was sworn in before Supreme Court Chief Jayantha Jayasuriya in the sheltered parliament building, a statement from his office said.
Sri Lanka’s police chief and military high command stood behind the president when he was sworn in in the presence of parliamentary chief Mahinda Abeywardana. The brief ceremony was to have been broadcast on local television but was cut without explanation shortly before kick-off.
Official sources said the new ruler will have to appoint a cabinet of no more than 30 ministers to pull the country out of its worst economic crisis since independence.
“President Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s eighth chief executive at the parliamentary complex before Sri Lankan Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya“, reported the president’s press office in a statement.
The new president is will remain in office until 2024, thus completing the mandate of the deposed Rajapaksa, after obtaining 134 supports from the 225 parliamentarians who were to decide the future head of state of a nation mired in deep political and financial instability. Dullas Alahapperuma, who also had the support of a part of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, won 82 votes while the third candidate in the running, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, of the coalition leftist NPP, only obtained three supports.
Sri Lanka is facing prolonged blackouts and its 22 million people have been lacking fuel, food and medicine for months. Public anger at the difficulties boiled over when tens of thousands of protesters stormed the home of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country and resigned, paving the way for Wickremesinghe’s election.
After the victory, the president-elect met with high-ranking Army and Police officers in charge of security in Parliament before the vote, after thousands of protesters stormed the official residences of then-President Rajapaksa and the Prime Minister, who at the time was none other than Wickremesinghe himself.
“During the meeting, he said that he was grateful to all those who contributed to maintaining democracy in the country.“, said his communication department. The election of Wickremesinghe has however caused discontent among the protesters, who expected a change to get out of the economic crisis.
Among the most urgent tasks of Wickremesinghe and his Government, which has not yet been announced, is to resume talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to negotiate a financial rescue program to this island of 22 million inhabitants
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