Sri Lanka’s Former Defence Chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa was sworn-in as the country’s new president after a record election victory.
The swearing-in took place before Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya in front of a historic Buddhist temple in Anuradhapura north east of the capital.
According to election results, the candidate for the Sri Lanka Podujana Party, Peoples’ Party, Rajapaksa, recorded an easy victory with a majority of more than 1.3 million votes in the country’s Presidential polls
He received around 52 per cent of the vote, compared to the 42 per cent for his chief rival, ruling party candidate Sajith Premadasa.
Both of the two favourites to win had focused their campaigns on the theme of security in the wake of this year’s Easter Sunday bombings by extremist Islamist groups that left the entire nation shaken.
President-elect Rajapaksa is the younger brother of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was in power from 2005 to 2015.
