(Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka will hold elections in September to elect a new president as the incumbent leader Ranil Wickremesinghe seeks a mandate for his tough fiscal reforms in the South Asian nation that’s trying to move past its worst financial crisis on record.
The Election Commission said the vote will be carried out on Sept. 21 with nominations for presidential candidates due on Aug. 15, according to a government notice. The national vote will be the first for the country after a historic debt default in May 2022 that saw living standards plummet and widespread unrest, forcing the populist Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.
Wickremesinghe, 75, who took the presidency through a parliament vote, went on to negotiate a $3 billion bailout package with the International Monetary Fund. A career politician who has been prime minister five times, Wickremesinghe has become deeply unpopular for his austerity measures that include raising taxes, hiking utility prices and putting some state enterprises up for sale.
An ally of Wickremesinghe was the first to make a deposit for his candidacy, Dinouk Colombage, director of international affairs for the president, said in a post on X. Wickremesinghe is standing as an independent candidate though political observers say he is backed by the Rajapaksa clan through their party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna that holds a majority in parliament.
Wickremesinghe’s key contenders are likely to be Sajith Premadasa, 57, who leads the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya party, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 55, of the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna party. It started out as a radical group and led insurrections against the government in the 1970s and 1980s before evolving into a socialist party that Sri Lankans are increasingly backing over the traditional parties led by the elites.
While all the potential presidential candidates have negative favorability ratings in June, Dissanayake has remained the least unpopular leader in Sri Lanka since Wickremesinghe took power July 2022, according to the Colombo-based Institute of Health Policy, an independent pollster. About four in five Sri Lankans say the island nation is still heading in the wrong direction, a view that has become more negative since polling started on this in early 2022.
Other politicians are also looking to take part in the presidential contest. Retired general Sarath Fonseka, who led the military offensive to crush a decades-long insurgency by separatist Tamil guerrilla fighters, has announced his candidacy. A member of the current cabinet, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has also declared he will take part in the race.
The elections will take place against a backdrop of austerity measures slowing inflation. Nevertheless, the economy remains resilient with better-than-expected 5.3% growth in the first quarter and Sri Lanka has struck a deal to restructure $12.6 billion of bonds with its commercial creditors, allowing it to tap more funding from the IMF.
--With assistance from Aradhana Aravindan.
(Updates throughout)
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