COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was sworn in on Thursday, the day after his election by parliament, and urged the island nation to come together to find a way out of its worst economic crisis for decades.
Sri Lanka is facing a serious economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also by political management deemed inadequate. The population faces food and fuel shortages, power cuts, massive inflation and record debt.
Six-time Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe succeeds Gotabaya Rajapaksa after the latter fled the country and resigned from his post last week. The swearing-in ceremony took place in Parliament, under the authority of the President of the Supreme Court.
The head of state is expected to appoint Dinesh Gunawardena, a respected minister and parliamentarian, as prime minister, four political sources told Reuters on Thursday.
The new government is expected to be named on Friday.
Sri Lanka received fresh supplies of diesel over the weekend and the main state-owned distributor, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, will resume sales under a new rationing scheme from Thursday, the ministry said. ‘Energy.
The protest movement which prompted Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign has largely diminished in intensity, despite the unpopularity of Ranil Wickremesinghe in certain sections of the population.
Only a handful of people were present outside the presidential secretariat on Thursday, a colonial-era building that was stormed by crowds of protesters earlier this month, as were the official residences of the president and prime minister.
Hours after winning the parliamentary vote on Wednesday, Ranil Wickremesinghe appeared to distance himself from the powerful Rajapaksa family that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for decades.
“I am not a friend of the Rajapaksa. I am a friend of the people,” he told reporters after praying at a Buddhist temple.
(Reporting Uditha Jayasinghe, Adnan Abidi and Sunil Kataria, written by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Devjyot Ghoshal; French version Augustin Turpin, editing by Kate Entringer)