COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe faces 38 challengers in polls next month, the election commission said after nominations closed Thursday, with former ally Sajith Premadasa leading the pack.
It will be the first vote since Wickremesinghe took over two years ago, after protesters furious at an unprecedented financial crisis toppled strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and the economy remains at the forefront.
"I have increased production... But it's not over yet. Life can be hard for some people. We have to stabilise the economy," Wickremesinghe told reporters after submitting his nomination. "So what we are saying is, let's go ahead and finish this job."
Wickremesinghe, 75, faces a daunting challenge from Premadasa, a 57-year-old career politician and the parliamentary leader of the opposition, as well as leftist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, 55, whose National People's Power (NPP) coalition is popular among the young.
The South Asian Buddhist-majority island nation will vote on September 21.
Premadasa vowed to tackle corruption. "Right now, 22 million people of our country are suffering from incompetence, ineptitude, mass-scale corruption, and looting of the public treasury," he said.
What started as a three-way battle became more complicated last week when the influential Rajapaksa family withdrew their support for Wickremesinghe in favour of one of their own -- Namal Rajapaksa.
The 38-year-old is a member of parliament and son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, a former president and prime minister, and the brother of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Wickremesinghe has shed his right-wing United National Party (UNP) and presented himself as an independent candidate hoping for broader support.
A record 39 candidates have entered the fray, two more than in 2019, but none are women, Election Commission chairman R M A L Rathnayake said.
Many are viewed as proxies of key parties who use the airtime allocated to them on national radio to campaign.
They include two Buddhist monks, one calling for the legalisation of cannabis and a ban on birth control.
"Please ensure you are within the law," Rathnayake said in a televised address, warning candidates to follow election rules.
"Don't influence public officers to any illegal activity to help your campaigns."
Election law violations are common in Sri Lanka but prosecutions are rare. More than 17 million are eligible to cast a ballot and results are expected within a day of voting. The new president must then be sworn in within two weeks. - AFP
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