2024-09-24 19:35:46
Sri Lanka’s new president, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, dissolved parliament on Tuesday and called a new election. According to a notice in the official gazette, the early parliamentary election will take place on November 14 – almost a year earlier than previously planned. Dissanayaka’s left-wing People’s Liberation Front (JVP) currently has only three of the 225 MPs in parliament.
Dissanayaka received 42.3 percent of the vote in Saturday’s presidential election, clearly beating second-placed Sajith Premadasa, who also ran for the opposition. Interim President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has been in office for two years, came in a distant third.
The presidential election was the first election in Sri Lanka since the mass protests at the height of the financial and economic crisis two years ago. The then head of state, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country after thousands of people stormed his office. The situation stabilized under his successor, Wickremesinghe. But Sri Lanka continues to suffer from strict austerity measures imposed on the South Asian island state by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for financial aid.
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