Sri Lanka will hold presidential election on September 21, its first since declaring bankruptcy in 2022
The HinduSri Lanka’s presidential polls will be held on September 21, the Election Commission said on Friday. Some 17 million voters will have their first chance of electing the country’s leader, after a mass people’s uprising ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa two years ago. His office announced making a cash deposit at the Commission for his candidacy as an independent, although he has relied on the Rajapaksas’ Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna since his rise to Presidency through an urgent parliamentary vote, after Mr. Gotabaya’s resignation amid the 2022 economic downturn. In the election scheduled to be held this September, he faces two prominent challengers in Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa, and Leader of the National People’s Power alliance Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Sri Lanka’s first three-cornered presidential race.