Anura Kumar Dissanayake sworn in as ninth President of Sri Lanka

Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena resigns from his post as part of a power transition in the country following the presidential election

Colombo: Anura Kumara Dissanayake was sworn in as Sri Lanka‘s ninth President on Monday, amid hopes that he will bolster the country’s economy and eliminate corruption.

Dissanayake, 56, was sworn in by Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya at the Presidential Secretariat. Dissanayake, the leader of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna party’s broader front National People’s Power (NPP), defeated his closest rival Sajith Premadasa of Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) in Saturday’s election.

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Earlier in the day, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena resigned from his post as part of a power transition in the country following the presidential election won by Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The resignation came ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of Dissanayake.

Gunawardena, 75, was Prime Minister since July 2022. Gunawardene, in a letter addressed to Dissanayake, said he is resigning from the post as a new President has been elected and that he would create the environment to appoint a new Cabinet.

Dissanayake, whose pro-working class and anti-political elite campaigning made him popular among youth, secured victory over opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and incumbent liberal President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over the country two years ago after its economy hit bottom.

Dissanayake received 5,740,179 votes, followed by Premadasa with 4,530,902, Election Commission data showed. The election held Saturday was crucial as the country seeks to recover from the worst economic crisis in its history and the resulting political upheaval.

“This achievement is not the result of any single person’s work, but the collective effort of hundreds of thousands of you. Your commitment has brought us this far, and for that, I am deeply grateful. This victory belongs to all of us,” Dissanayake said in a post on X.

Outgoing President Wickremesinghe in a video statement congratulated Dissanayake and said he hoped he will carry forward the economic recovery efforts successfully. The election was a virtual referendum on Wickremesinghe’s leadership, including restructuring Sri Lanka’s debt under an International Monetary Fund bailout after it defaulted in 2022.