FILE PHOTO: People walk along a road in the Dutch Fort, in Galle, Sri Lanka August 17, 2024. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo LONDON/COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's knife-edge election on Saturday has raised doubts over when its long-awaited debt deal with bondholders will be finalised, if it keeps up with its IMF programme targets and even whether it results in a president inclined to change both. Two of the leading presidential contenders, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Marxist-leaning parliamentarian Anura Kumara Dissanayake, have expressed interest in reworking Sri Lanka's $2.
9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout. Sri Lanka has struggled since suicide bombings in 2019 hit its key tourism industry, worsening its over-spending and capping growth. Less than a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing global food and fuel price spikes, combined with interest rate hikes, tipped its economy over the abyss.
In April 2022, Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt, sparking protests that forced out former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Voters in the south Asian island nation of 22 million people, a tranquil tourist destination full of tea plantations and beautiful beaches, have since endured years of hardship. However, green shoots have begun to surface under President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office in 2022.
"Everyone in Sri Lanka, be it the politicians, the upper class or middle class or lower class, they do see the economy is returning back to a steady, recovering tr.