Sri Lanka defaulted on $50 billion in external debt in 2022, pushing the populace towards an alternative candidate.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake thanked voters Friday for delivering his leftist coalition a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections that repudiated establishment parties blamed for triggering an economic crisis.

The NPP won 107 seats, receiving almost 62 per cent or 6.8 million votes in Thursday’s election, putting them past the majority mark in the parliament, latest results on the Election Commission of Sri Lanka‘s website showed. A two-third majority appeared within reach of the coalition.