But Wickremesinghe’s tax hikes and other measures, imposed per the terms of a US$2.9 billion IMF bailout, have left millions struggling to make ends meet.
“The country has been through a lot,” lawyer and musician Soundarie David Rodrigo told AFP after casting her vote in Colombo.
“So I just don’t want to see another upheaval coming soon.”
Wickremesinghe is tipped to lose to one of two formidable challengers. One is Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, the leader of a once-marginal Marxist party tarnished by its violent past.
The party led two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s that left more than 80,000 people dead, and it won less than four per cent of the vote in the previous parliamentary elections.
But Sri Lanka’s crisis has proven an opportunity for the 55-year-old Dissanayaka, who has seen a surge of support based on his pledge to change the island’s “corrupt” political culture.
He said at a polling station he was confident of securing the top job.
“After the victory there should be no clashes, no violence,” he said. “Our country needs a new political culture.”
Fellow opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, 57, the son of a former president assassinated in 1993 during the country’s decades-long civil war, is also expected to make a strong showing.
Premadasa has vowed to fight endemic corruption, and both he and Dissanayaka have pledged to renegotiate the terms of the IMF rescue package.
THREE-WAY RACE
Political analyst Kusal Perera told AFP it was difficult to predict a winner from the three-way race – the first in the island’s history.
“What is clear is that no candidate will surpass the 50 per cent mark” needed to win outright, he said.
Officials would then carry out a count of second- and third-preference votes to determine the winner.
“There is a significant number of voters trying to send a strong message … that they are very disappointed with the way this country has been governed,” Murtaza Jafferjee of think tank Advocata told AFP.
A total of 39 people are contesting the vote, including a 79-year-old candidate who remains on the ballot despite dying of a heart attack last month.
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