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.
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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.