Marxist leader sworn in as president of country with 22M people

Marxist politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake officially entered office as the president of Sri Lanka on Monday.

Dissanayake, 55, defeated President Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose party was accused of leading the country into an economic crisis. The new leader's party is the People's Liberation Front, a Marxist group that launched two armed insurrections during the 1970s and 1980s.

"We have deeply understood that we are going to get a challenging country," Dissanayake said during his swearing-in ceremony. "We don’t believe that a government, a single party or an individual would be able to resolve this deep crisis.

Chinese president Xi Jinping congratulated Dissanayake on his victory, saying on Monday that China looks forward to working together "to jointly carry forward our traditional friendship." The U.S. and India previously congratulated Dissanayake.

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Located to the south of India, many voters in the Buddhist majority country of 22 million people — approximately the same size as West Virginia — say they felt disgruntled with the country's political culture as the nation climbs slowly out of its economic crisis.

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Reuters reports that inflation rose as high as 70% after the 2022 collapse due to a severe shortage of dollars. Inflation has since cooled, however, and the nation's GDP is expected to grow "for the first time in three years."

Dissanayake's inauguration is the first standard transfer of power in Sri Lanka since 2022, when rioters forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign and flee the country. Wickremesinghe then replaced him in the fallout.

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Dissanayake's first major challenge will be to act on his campaign promise to ease austerity measures imposed by his predecessor Wickremesinghe under a relief agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which is the nation's largest creditor.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report