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Sri Lanka’s parliament began voting Wednesday for a president to replace Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled abroad after his palace was stormed by angry protesters now bracing for a crackdown from his likely successor.
One by one, the legislators entered ballot booths set up on the floor of the chamber to choose between three candidates to lead the crisis-wracked country.
“Members are reminded that taking photographs of ballot papers or displaying them to others is an offence,” parliamentary secretary-general, Dhammika Dasanayake, told them. Previous elections have been marred by allegations of corruption and vote-buying.
The winner will take charge of a bankrupt nation that is in bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund, with its 22 million people enduring severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
Outside the parliament, hundreds of heavily armed troops and police stood guard, but there were no signs of demonstrators.
Analysts say the frontrunner is Ranil Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister who became acting president after his predecessor resigned, but is despised by the protesters who see him as a Rajapaksa ally.
Months of demonstrations over an unprecedented economic crisis culminated in Rajapaksa announcing his resignation from Singapore last week, days after troops rescued the leader from his besieged compound.
His departure wounds a once-powerful ruling clan that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for most of the past two decades, after his brothers also quit their posts as premier and finance minister earlier this year.
Wickremesinghe, 73, has the backing of the Rajapaksas’ SLPP, the largest bloc in the 225-member parliament, in the election.
As acting president, Wickremesinghe has extended a state of emergency that gives police and security forces sweeping powers, and last week he ordered troops to evict protesters from state buildings they had occupied.
An opposition MP said Wickremesinghe’s hardline stance against demonstrators was going down well with MPs who had been at the receiving end of mob violence, and most SLPP legislators would side with him.
“Ranil is emerging as the law-and-order candidate,” Tamil MP Dharmalingam Sithadthan told AFP ahead of the ballot.
Political analyst Kusal Perera agreed Wickremesinghe had a “slight advantage”, despite his own party securing just one seat at the August 2020 elections.