Three candidates, including Ranil Wickremesinghe, in fray in Sri Lanka presidential polls, voting tomorrow

Alahapperuma, who belongs to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and was the information minister for mass media, has emerged as the candidate against Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has been the prime minister six times now, will be the presidential candidate for the ruling SLPP, who have the numbers to pull it off, unless Alahapperuma is able to substantially split the party’s votes.

Anura Dissanayake belongs to the JVP, one of the smaller parties in the Opposition fold, which has supported the protest movement as well.

Opposition leader and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) candidate Sajith Premadasa has decided to withdraw from the presidential polls and said he will support Alahapperuma.“For the greater good of my country that I love and the people I cherish I hereby withdraw my candidacy for the position of President. @sjbsrilanka and our alliance and our opposition partners will work hard towards making @DullasOfficial victorious,” he tweeted.

The three candidates were nominated and their candidature was accepted by the Sri Lankan Parliament on Tuesday as Sri Lanka faces a devastating economic crisis and a popular uprising. A vote in Parliament will be held Wednesday, and an announcement will be made as to who will be the next President of Sri Lanka.

This comes days after Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa sent his resignation by email. Speaker of Sri Lankan Parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena officially confirmed last Friday that he has received Rajapaksa’s resignation letter and that he intends to complete the legislative process to elect a new President in the next 7 days.

As per the Constitution, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the acting President until the appointment of the new President.

A day after he fled Sri Lanka, disgraced Rajapaksa flew from the Maldives to Singapore, where the government said he had been “allowed entry” on “a private visit” — and later sent his resignation to the Lanka Speaker.

Ahead of the Sri Lankan Parliament’s meeting for electing the new President, the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo Gopal Baglay had met Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on Saturday and said that India will continue to be “supportive of democracy, stability and economic recovery in Sri Lanka”.

This was the first publicly-announced contact by the Indian envoy with the Lankan parliament after Ranil Wickremesinghe took oath as the acting President of the island nation.