Sri Lankan PM elected as president to fireworks and protests

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Sri Lanka’s unpopular prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected president Wednesday, in a secret parliamentary ballot that risked reigniting turmoil among a public outraged by the South Asian nation’s economic collapse.

Sri Lankans have taken to the street for months to demand their president and his prime minister step down as the country spiralled into economic chaos that left its 22 million people struggling with shortages of essentials, including medicine, fuel and food.

After they stormed the presidential palace and several other government buildings last week, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled and then resigned.

Much of the protesters’ ire is focused on Rajapaksa and his family’s political dynasty, which ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades, but many also blame Wickremesinghe, a six-time prime minister, for protecting him and see him as a part of the same problematic rule.

“We won't back down, we won't let this be, we won't settle for any less,” 26-year-old activist and mental health counsellor Kasumi Ranasinghe Arachchige said. “The people deserve to get their basic necessities — they deserve fuel, they deserve transportation, they deserve anything that the citizens of Sri Lanka need."