Colombo (Web Desk): Ranil Wickremesinghe has been sworn in as Sri Lanka’s president.
The oath taking ceremony was in the Parliament in the capital, Colombo.
Wickremesinghe replaces Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to flee the country in the face of months-long protests over a crippling economic crisis.
Ranil Wickremesinghe has been elected as the eighth executive president under the constitution.
The 225-member parliament gave 134 votes to Wickremesinghe and 82 to ruling party lawmaker Dullas Alahapperuma. A third candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, got just three votes.
Alahapperuma was more acceptable to the protesters and the opposition but did not have any top-level governance experience in a country with barely any dollars for imports and desperately in need of an IMF bailout.
