Sri Lankans elect Marxist-leaning Dissanayake as president to fix economy

The Star

Sri Lankans elected Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake as new president on Sunday (Sept 22), putting faith in his pledge to fight corruption and bolster a fragile economic recovery following the South Asian nation's worst financial crisis in decades.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/39m73ufp  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00Sri Lanka elected its new president on Sunday, the Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

00:17The public put faith in his pledge to fight corruption and bolster a fragile economic

00:21recovery following its worst financial crisis in decades.

00:25Dissanayake led from start to finish during the counting of ballots, polling over 42

00:30percent of the votes, that's despite not having any political lineage, like some of

00:35his rivals in the presidential election.

00:38He knocked out incumbent President Ranil Wickremasinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa to

00:45become Sri Lanka's tenth president.

00:47The election was also a referendum on Wickremasinghe.

00:51He led the heavily indebted nation's fragile economic recovery from a meltdown in 2022.

00:57But the austerity measures that were key to this recovery hindered his bid to return to

01:01office.

01:03He finished third with 17 percent of the vote.

01:06Premadasa, in second place, got almost 33 percent.

01:10This election marked the first time in Sri Lanka's history that the presidential race

01:15was decided by a second round of counting.

01:18That's after the top two candidates failed to win the mandatory 50 percent of votes to

01:23be declared winner.

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