Ranil Wickremesinghe takes oath as new Sri Lanka president 

Ranil Wickremesinghe took oath as the President of Sri Lanka at the parliament complex on Thursday, July 21 after his victory in a parliament vote to choose a new president for the South Asian country.

Wickremesinghe was sworn-in as Sri Lanka's ninth president today morning and will appoint a new prime minister within the course of the day.  

Ranil Wickremesinghe became Sri Lanka's ninth President after winning the Presidential poll on Wednesday, July 20. He raked in 134 votes. 

Wickremesinghe was up against the Opposition-backed candidate Dullas Alahapperuma and Marxist party leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake in a three-way contest. While Alahapperuma secured 82 votes, Dissanayake got only three. 

The voting became necessary after former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned from the post last week amid Sri Lanka’s worst-ever economic crisis. 

Wickremesinghe is a six-time prime minister who has never served a full term. He is backed by the Rajapaksas’ Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, which remains the largest party in the 225-member Parliament.

On May 12, Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the island nation’s prime minister. However, in June he stepped down from office to make way for an all-party government.

Wickremesinghe is now responsible for leading the country out of its ongoing economic crisis.
Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people has run out of foreign exchange reserves limiting essential imports of fuel, food and medicine. The island nation’s inflation rate touched 54.6% year-over-year in June while food inflation shot up to 80%.

The economic meltdown led to Sri Lanka defaulting on its $51-billion (over Rs 4 lakh crore) foreign debt in April. The country is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package.