Sri Lanka's election commission declared Marxist politician Anura Kumara Dissanayaka president-elect on Sunday after a vote coloured by discontent over the island nation's response to an unprecedented financial crisis.
Dissanayaka, the 55-year-old leader of the People's Liberation Front, won the presidency with 42.31 per cent of the vote in Saturday's election, the commission said.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa took second place with 32.76 per cent, AFP reports.
Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office at the peak of the 2022 economic collapse and imposed tough austerity policies per the terms of an IMF bailout, took a distant third with 17.27 per cent.
Wickremesinghe has yet to concede, but Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said it was clear that Dissanayaka had won.
"Though I heavily campaigned for President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the people of Sri Lanka have made their decision, and I fully respect their mandate for Anura Kumara Dissanayaka," Sabry said on social media.
Dissanayaka will be sworn in on Monday morning at the colonial-era President Secretariat in Colombo.
bd-pratidin/GR
