Sri Lanka elections
\n COLOMBO
\nThe party of presidential candidate and Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, likely to win Sri Lanka\u2019s presidential vote on Sunday, said that they would renegotiate and not scrap the country\u2019s unpopular $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout agreement.
\n\u201cOur plan is to engage with the IMF and introduce certain amendments [\u2026.] We will not tear up the IMF programme. It is a binding document, but there is a provision to renegotiate,\u201d People\u2019s Liberation Front\u2019s politburo member Bimal Ratnayake told media.
\nHe said Dissanayaka, 55, had pledged to reduce income taxes that were doubled by President Ranil Wickremesinghe and slash sales taxes on food and medicines. \u201cWe think we can get those reductions into the programme and continue with the four-year bailout programme.\u201d
\nDissanayaka\u2019s rivals had raised fears that his Marxist party would scrap the IMF programme and push the country back into an economic crisis similar to the chaos of 2022 when a foreign exchange crisis led to shortages of essentials sparking street protests which eventually forced then-leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and resign.
\nIf elected, Dissanayaka would be Sri Lanka\u2019s first Marxist head of state.Earlier in the day, Dissanayaka had secured 60.21% of the 164,000 votes counted, out of just over 700,000. About 76% of the 17.1 million person electorate turned out for Saturday\u2019s vote, and final results are expected later Sunday.
\nThe authorities declared an eight-hour evening curfew across the country while results were being announced via manual counts, as Sri Lanka does not have electronic voting. Wickremesinghe is seeking a fresh term to press ahead with his austerity measures after claiming credit for stabilising the economy after a crushing default on the national debt in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sri Lanka elections COLOMBO The party of presidential candidate and Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, likely to win Sri Lanka\u2019s presidential vote on Sunday, said that they would renegotiate and not scrap the country\u2019s unpopular $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout agreement. \u201cOur plan is to engage with the IMF and introduce certain amendments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-432902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n