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Sri Lanka’s first presidential elections since an unprecedented economic crisis sparked widespread unrest will be held in September, the electoral commission said on Friday.
The election will be the first test of public sentiment since the height of the 2022 recession, which caused months of food, fuel and medicine shortages across the island nation.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 75, who took office after street protests forced his predecessor to flee the country, has strongly hinted that he plans to run.
He will face at least two rivals who are campaigning against the austerity measures his government has imposed to satisfy an International Monetary Fund bailout package.
The five-week campaign announced by the commission will end with a vote on September 21, in a country that is still struggling with a fragile economic recovery and endemic discontent regarding cost of living issues.
Economic issues are expected to dominate the campaign as the country emerges from its worst-ever recession in 2022, when GDP shrank by a record 7.8%.
Since then, inflation has returned to normal levels, after peaking at 70% at the height of the crisis.
Wickremesinghe also successfully negotiated a restructuring of Sri Lanka’s $46 billion external debt with bilateral creditors, including China, following a government default in 2022.
But his policies to balance the government’s books by raising taxes and withdrawing generous subsidies for public services have been deeply unpopular with the public.
Although the months-long shortages of food, fuel and medicine seen at the height of the economic crisis are now a distant memory, many Sri Lankans say Wickremesinghe’s austerity measures have left them struggling to make ends meet.
Opposition parties have promised to renegotiate the terms of the $2.9 billion IMF bailout that Wickremesinghe negotiated last year.
The president’s main opponent so far is Sajith Premadasa, 57, a former party ally and current leader of the opposition.
Premadasa promised to continue with economic reforms and the IMF program, but promised to protect the public by reducing tax increases that Wickremesinghe imposed to bolster state revenues.
A left-wing party is also recruiting its leader, 55-year-old former agriculture minister Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is campaigning against plans to privatize state-owned companies.
Wickremesinghe took office after the government defaulted in 2022 after a large crowd stormed predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s compound.
Rajapaksa, who was accused of leading Sri Lanka into crisis through economic mismanagement, temporarily fled abroad and submitted his resignation from Singapore.
Local elections were due to be held last year, but were postponed indefinitely after the government insisted it did not have the money to hold a national vote.
More than 17 million Sri Lankans over the age of 18 can vote.
The electoral commission has allocated 33 million dollars (10 billion rupees) for this year’s presidential elections.
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