Ranil Wickremesinghe has been elected as the new president of Sri Lanka

Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been elected as the 08th executive president of Sri Lanka a short while ago through a secret ballot held among MP’s of the Parliament.

Out of the 225 MP’s who are eligible to vote in the Parliamentary vote held this morning, 134 had voted in favor of the Acting President Wickremesinghe and 82 had voted in favor of MP Dallas Alahapperuma who has represented the governing Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party. Only 03 had voted for the leader of the leftist Jathika JanaBalawegaya Party, Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

Earlier Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa had withdrawn his candidature from the President’s race to support the candidate of governing party Dallas Alahapperuma. After this move many have predicted MP Alahapperuma will win the race with the support of Main opposition party Samagi Janabalawegaya (SJB) lead by Sajith Premadasa and other Tamil and Muslim Minority parties which had pledged their support to him.

However many in the governing party which was formed by Ousted Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaskhe and his brother former finance minister Basil Rajapaskhe had voted in favor of Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe.