Leading Sri Lankan presidential candidate's party says it will renegotiate IMF deal

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's leading presidential candidate and Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka's party has said that it will not scrap the country's $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement and instead would renegotiate the bailout programme.

Speaking to AFP, People's Liberation Front's politburo member Bimal Ratnayake said: "Our plan is to engage with the IMF and introduce certain amendments [....] We will not tear up the IMF programme. It is a binding document, but there is a provision to renegotiate."

The party official further said that Dissanayaka, 55, had pledged to reduce income taxes that were doubled by President Ranil Wickremesinghe and slash sales taxes on food and medicines.

"We think we can get those reductions into the programme and continue with the four-year bailout programme."

Dissanayaka's rivals had raised fears that his Marxist party would scrap the IMF programme and push the country back into an economic crisis similar to the chaos of 2022 when a foreign exchange crisis led to shortages of essentials sparking street protests which eventually forced then-leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and resign.

If elected, Dissanayaka would be Sri Lanka's first Marxist head of state.

Earlier in the day, Dissanayaka had secured 60.21% of the 164,000 votes counted, out of just over 700,000.

About 76% of the 17.1 million person electorate turned out for Saturday's vote, and final results are expected later Sunday.

The authorities declared an eight-hour evening curfew across the country while results were being announced via manual counts, as Sri Lanka does not have electronic voting.

Wickremesinghe is seeking a fresh term to press ahead with his austerity measures after claiming credit for stabilising the economy after a crushing default on the national debt in 2022.