Sri Lanka swears in new left-leaning president

Sri Lanka's caller president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has taken his oath of office, promising to "rewrite history" for a state that is recovering from its worst economical crisis.

The left-leaning Dissanayake has formed himself arsenic a disruptor of the governmental presumption quo, and analysts spot his triumph arsenic a rejection of corruption and cronyism that has agelong plagued the country.

Saturday's predetermination was the archetypal since 2022, erstwhile discontent implicit the system fuelled wide protests and chased erstwhile president Gotabaya Rajapaksa from power.

Dissanayake has received messages of congratulations from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the US State Department.

In a connection connected the eve of his swearing-in arsenic president, the 55-year-old, besides known arsenic AKD, said "this triumph belongs to each of us" and that Sri Lanka was astatine a "fresh start".

"The millions of eyes filled with anticipation and anticipation propulsion america forward, and together, we basal acceptable to rewrite Sri Lankan history," helium said.

During the campaign, Dissanayake promised voters bully governance and pugnacious anti-corruption measures.

He has promised to make Sri Lanka's manufacturing, agriculture and IT sectors. He has besides committed to continuing the woody struck with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail Sri Lanka retired of the economical situation portion reducing the interaction of its austerity measures connected the country’s poorest.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena resigned earlier Dissanayake was sworn in, paving the mode for the dissolution of parliament.

In an earlier interrogation with BBC Sinhala, Dissanayake signalled that helium would dissolve parliament soon aft being elected.

"There is nary constituent continuing with a parliament that is not successful enactment with what the radical want," helium said astatine the time.

Dissanayake won aft the counting stretched into a 2nd circular connected Sunday, arsenic nary campaigner was capable to triumph much than 50% of the full votes successful the archetypal round.

Once the 2nd and third-choice votes for president had been tallied, the Election Commission said Dissanayake had won with a full of 5,740,179 votes.

Opposition person Sajith Premadasa came successful 2nd astatine 4,530,902. Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe got 2,299,767 during the archetypal circular of counting and was excluded from the 2nd round.

Wickremesinghe congratulated his successor, saying: "With overmuch emotion and respect for this beloved nation, I manus implicit its aboriginal to the caller president".

Until this weekend's vote, each of Sri Lanka's 8 statesmanlike elections since 1982 had seen the victor look during the archetypal circular of counting. This canvass has been described arsenic 1 of the closest successful the country's history.

Dissanayake's anti-corruption level resonated powerfully with voters who person been clamouring for systematic alteration since the crisis.

This enabled him to flooded trepidation implicit the convulsive past of his governmental party, the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which carried retired 2 equipped insurrections against the Sri Lankan authorities successful the 1970s and 80s.

Dissanayake's alliance, the National People’s Power – of which the JVP is simply a portion – roseate to prominence during the 2022 protests, known arsenic the Aragalaya – Sinhala for struggle.

Dissanayak has besides sought to mean the hard-left stance of his enactment successful much caller years.

The country's caller president volition beryllium faced with the duplicate tasks of reviving the system and lifting millions from crushing poverty.

An economical meltdown fuelled the Aragalaya uprising that unseated Rajapaksa from the statesmanlike palace successful 2022.

At that time, Sri Lanka's overseas currency reserves had dried up, leaving the state incapable to import essentials specified arsenic fuel. Public indebtedness ballooned to $83bn portion ostentation soared to 70%.

This made basics specified arsenic nutrient and medicine unaffordable to mean people.

The country's economical misery has been blamed connected large argumentation errors, anemic exports and years of under-taxation. This was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which choked tourism, a cardinal economical driver.

Many radical person besides blamed corruption and mismanagement, however, stoking choler against Rajapaksa and his family, who collectively ruled Sri Lanka for much than 10 years.

"The astir superior situation is however to reconstruct this economy," Dr Athulasiri Samarakoon, a governmental idiosyncratic astatine the Open University of Sri Lanka, told the BBC Sinhala Service.

During his term Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9bn lifeline from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is important to opening further backing channels but comes with strict economical and governance argumentation reforms.

Sri Lanka is restructuring the presumption of its indebtedness payments with overseas and home lenders, arsenic mandated by the IMF. The main absorption has been the country's $36bn worthy of overseas debt, of which $7bn is owed to China, its largest bilateral creditor.

Like Dissanayake, Premadasa besides pushed for IT development, arsenic good arsenic the constitution of 25 caller concern zones. He said tourism should beryllium supported truthful that it becomes the country's apical overseas currency earner.

Wickremesinghe said during the run that helium would treble tourer arrivals and found a nationalist wealthiness fund, arsenic good arsenic caller economical zones to summation growth.

Additional reporting by BBC Sinhala