Ranil Wickremesinghe elected president
mode1
Jul 20, 2022 01:36
786
0
The Parliament today (July 20) elected Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the 8th Executive President of Sri Lanka by majority votes.
In a secret ballot that got underway in the House this morning, Mr Wickremesinghe defeated his main rival for the job, Dullus Alahapperuma, with 134 votes to 82 in the parliamentary vote. MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake secured only 03 votes.
In the 225-member parliament, 223 had cast their votes and four were declared invalid. Two members namely MPs Selvaraja Gajendran and G.G. Ponnambalam abstained from voting.
the Members of Parliament voted to elect a succeeding President to fill in the post left vacant after the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa last week. The procedure for electing a new president by Parliament is provided in the Constitution and the Presidential Elections (Special Provisions) Act (No. 2 of 1981), in the event of a vacancy in the office of the President before the end of the term.
