The country, on the verge of bankruptcy, was without a head of state after the president fled Gotabaya Rajapaksa following riots.
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Ranil Wickremesinghe, interim president of Sri Lanka, was elected president on Wednesday July 20 by an overwhelming majority by Parliament to succeed Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The latter had resigned last week after fleeing his bankrupt country.
According to official results, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has been prime minister six times, won 134 votes, against 82 for his main opponent Dullas Alahapperuma and only three for the left-wing candidate Anura Dissanayake. “Our divisions are now over”declared the new Head of State in a speech delivered to Parliament just after his election by the deputies, calling on Anura Alahapperuma to “join in order to work together to get the country out of the crisis”.
Bankruptcy of the country
With the accession of the 73-year-old cacique to supreme responsibilities, the current cabinet is automatically dissolved. He inherits a country of 22 million people ravaged by a catastrophic economic crisis that is causing shortages of food, medicine and fuel. The island, which defaulted in April on its foreign debt of 51 billion dollars, does not even have enough foreign currency to finance its essential imports, and hopes for a rescue plan from the International Monetary Fund.