Counting goes to historic second round

For the first time in the country’s history, Sri Lanka’s pdwellntial election has gone into a second round of counting after no individual honestate won the 50% plus one vote necessitateed to be proclaimd the triumphner.

The election comomition will now count voters’ second and third choices for pdwellnt – people were asked to label up to three honestates in order of preference during the election.

The first round, which saw the counting of people’s primary choice of honestate, had Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a leftist politician in the direct. Opposition directer Sajith Premadasa is in second place.

However, the brimming results of the first round of counting are yet to be freed to the accessible.

In a press conference, the election comomition shelp that all other honestates apart from Dissanayake and Premadasa have been omitd.

The omitd honestates’ ballots will now be verifyed to see if secondary or third preferential votes were given to the two frontrunners.

The election on Saturday was the first to be held since mass protests unseated the country’s directer, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in 2022 after the country suffered its worst economic crisis.

All of Sri Lanka’s eight pdwellntial elections since 1982 have seen the triumphner ecombine during the first round of counting. This poll has been depictd as one of the sealst in the country’s history.

Seventeen million Sri Lankans were eligible to vote on Saturday and the country’s elections comomition shelp it was the most tranquil in the country’s history.

Still, police proclaimd a curscant tardy Saturday night citing “accessible protectedty. It was lifted at noon local time (06:30 GMT).

Dissanayake promised voters stubborn anti-dishonesty meacertains and excellent administerance – messages that resonated powerentirey with voters who have been clamouring for systematic alter since the crisis.

Early results showed him rocketing to the direct, prompting cut offal high profile figures – including the country’s foreign minister – to congratutardy him.

But the tardyst numbers have shown him losing ground to Premadasa.

Incumbent pdwellnt Ranil Wickremesinghe won 17% of the vote, putting him in third place in the polling.

The country’s new pdwellnt will be faced with the ttriumph tasks of reviving the economy and lifting millions from crushing pcleary.

An economic meltdown fueled the “Aragalaya” (struggle) uprising that unseated Rajapaksa from the pdwellntial palace in 2022.

At that time, Sri Lanka’s foreign currency reserves had dried up, leaving the country unable to transport in essentials such as fuel. Public debt had ballooned to $83bn while inflation zoomed to 70%.

This made fundamentals appreciate food and medicine unaffordable to to frequent people.

The country’s economic misery has been accparticipated on transport inant policy errors, feeble send outs and years of under-taxation. This was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which choked tourism, a key economic driver.

But many people have also accparticipated dishonesty and misdeal withment, fuelling anger aobtainst Rajapaksa and his family, who assembleively ruled Sri Lanka for more than 10 years.

“The most solemn contest is how to repair this economy,” shelp Dr. Athulasiri Samarakoon, a political scientist at the Open University of Sri Lanka, tbetter the BBC Sinhala Service.

During his term, Wickremesinghe had protectedd a $2.9bn lifeline from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is vital to uncovering insertitional funding channels, but comes with cut offe economic and administerance policy recreates.

Sri Lanka is restructuring the terms of its debt payments with foreign and domestic lfinishers, as mandated by the IMF. The main cgo in has been the country’s $36bn in foreign debt, of which $7bn is owed to China, its bigst bitardyral praiseor.

Dissanayake has promised to grow the manufacturing, agriculture and IT sectors. He has also promiseted to revising tax rates and widening the tax base.

Premadasa has also pushed for IT as well as the set upment of 25 new industrial zones. He shelp tourism should be aided so that it becomes the country’s top foreign currency obtainer.

Wickremesinghe during the campaign shelp he would double tourist arrivals and set up a national wealth fund as well as new economic zones to incrrelieve growth.