News - Middle East: Sri Lankan legislators have elected six-time Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as president of the crisis-hit island country, days after runaway president Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned from abroad.

The South Asian country, home to 22 million people, is struggling with its worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948 amid a severe foreign exchange shortage that has limited essential imports of fuel, food, and medicine. 

Mass protests over crushing economic woes eventually forced Rajapaksa to flee the country to the Maldives and then to Singapore, where he tendered his overdue resignation in a letter sent by email to the parliament on Thursday. Since then, Wickremesinghe has served as acting president.

On Wednesday, Sri Lankan lawmakers entered ballot booths to elect the next president, with official results showing that 73-year-old Wickremesinghe secured 134 votes, an absolute majority in the 225-member parliament.

Previous elections were purportedly marred by allegations of corruption and vote-buying, and mobile phones were banned to prevent anyone from taking photos of the ballots.

“Our divisions are now over,” Wickremesinghe said in a brief acceptance speech in the heavily-guarded parliament, urging his defeated rivals “to join me and work together to bring the country out of the crisis we are facing.”