July 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has held the position of interim president since last week after Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country, was elected this Wednesday by parliamentarians as the new president, despite the demands of the protesters to tender his resignation.
Wickremesinghe has obtained 134 votes, beating the other two candidates, the former Minister of Education Dullas Alahapperume and the parliamentarian of the leftist National People’s Power Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who have obtained 82 and three supports, respectively, according to the Sri Lankan newspaper ‘Daily Mirror ‘.
The vote took place about a week after Rajapaksa left the country for Singapore, with a previous stop in the Maldives, amid massive demonstrations to demand his resignation due to the very serious economic and social crisis that the island is going through.
Wickremesinghe was sworn in as interim president on Friday after being chosen for it by Rajapaksa himself, after assuring that he would resign once an inclusive government is formed after the resignation of the president, which has not appeased the spirits of the protesters, who They also ask that the prime minister leave his post.
Rajapaksa gave in after months of protests over rising prices, lack of food, medicine and fuel, which has left the small Asian island facing its worst economic crisis since it gained independence from British colonial rule. The popular revolution has brought down the Rajapaksa family, after Gotabaya forced his brother Mahinda to step down as prime minister in early May in an attempt to end the protests.
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