Polling was underway on Saturday in Sri Lanka’s presidential election, the first major electoral exercise in the island nation since its economic crisis in 2022.

The voting started at 7 am and will end at 4 pm. The result is expected to be declared on Sunday.

Seventeen million citizens are eligible to vote across more than 13,000 polling stations, Reuters reported. Thirty-eight candidates are contesting the polls.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 75, is contesting as an Independent candidate.

The former prime minister took over as Sri Lanka’s president in July 2022 through an extraordinary parliamentary vote after Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who held the position at the time, was forced out amid the economic and political crisis. The country declared bankruptcy that month.

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Wickremesinghe is facing a challenge from Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the leftist National People’s Power alliance, Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s nephew Namal, among others.

Premadasa, the leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya alliance, had lost the presidential polls to Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019. Namal Rajapaksa, 38, belongs to the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, a party led by his father, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

While a bailout programme by the International Monetary Fund has helped improve the economic situation tentatively, the high cost of living is among the main issues in the election.

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Dissanayake and Premadasa have vowed to renegotiate the loan conditions of the International Monetary Fund’s bailout plan to provide greater economic relief to the public.

The country’s voting system allows voters to cast three preferential votes for the candidates.

A candidate needs at least 50% of first-preference votes to win. If no candidate gets this vote share, the second and third preferences are added to their count to determine the winner.

Also read: Sri Lanka: Could free and fair elections bring actual change this year?