Sri Lankan prime minister resigns after Dissanayake's presidential win

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has resigned, he said on Monday, a day after Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake won a presidential election in the debt-ridden Indian Ocean nation.

Gunawardena, 75, took over as prime minister in July 2022 after former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned in the face of widespread protests unleashed by the worst economic crisis in decades.

Sunday’s election saw Dissanayake defeat incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had been appointed by parliament to serve out Rajapaksa’s remaining term.

“I respectfully inform you that I hereby resign as the prime minister,” Gunawardena said in a post on X, thanking Wickremesinghe for support extended during his tenure.

Media said Gunawardena had already sent his resignation to President-elect Dissanayake.

The development came after Sri Lanka’s new president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, took his oath of office, promising to “rewrite history” for a country that is recovering from its worst economic crisis.

In a statement on the eve of his swearing-in as president, the 55-year-old, also known as AKD, said “this victory belongs to all of us” and that Sri Lanka was at a “fresh start”.

Sri Lankans earlier elected Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake as new president on Sunday, putting faith in his pledge to fight corruption and bolster a fragile economic recovery following the South Asian nation’s worst financial crisis in decades.

Dissanayake, 55, who does not possess political lineage like some of his rivals in the presidential election, led from start to finish during the counting of votes, knocking out incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa.

“We believe that we can turn this country around, we can build a stable government… and move forward. For me this is not a position, it is a responsibility,” Anura Kumara Dissanayake told reporters after his victory which was confirmed after a second tally of votes.

The election was a referendum on Wickremesinghe, who led the heavily indebted nation’s fragile economic recovery from an economic meltdown but the austerity measures that were key to this recovery angered voters. He finished third with 17% of the votes.

“Mr. President, here I handover to you with much love, the dear child called Sri Lanka, whom we both love very dearly,” Wickremesinghe, 75, said in a statement conceding defeat.