Ahead of the voting to elect Sri Lanka’s new President today, Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa has made a request to India to keep supporting the island nation irrespective of who is elected to the top post.

Irrespective of who becomes the President of Sri Lanka tomorrow it is my humble and earnest request to Hon. PM Shri @narendramodi, to all the political parties of India and to the people of India to keep helping mother Lanka and it’s people to come out of this disaster.

— Sajith Premadasa (@sajithpremadasa) July 19, 2022

Mr Premdasa, the leader of Sri Lanka's Opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya, tweeted last evening, "Irrespective of who becomes the President of Sri Lanka tomorrow it is my humble and earnest request to Hon. PM Shri @narendramodi, to all the political parties of India and to the people of India to keep helping mother Lanka and it's people to come out of this disaster."

Premadasa withdrew from the presidential race in favour of Alahapperuma. He tweeted that "for the greater good of my country that I love and the people I cherish" his party will support Dullas Alahapperuma, a former media minister.

Sri Lanka's parliament is voting to elect a new president to replace Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country last week as his palace was stormed by angry protesters.

Analysts say the frontrunner is Ranil Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister who became acting president after his predecessor resigned, but is despised by the protesters who see him as a Rajapaksa ally.

His main opponent in the vote will be SLPP dissident and former education minister Dullas Alahapperuma, a former journalist who is being supported by the opposition. Alahapperuma pledged this week to form "an actual consensual government for the first time in our history".

Wickremesinghe, 73, has the backing of the Rajapaksas' SLPP, the largest bloc in the 225-member parliament, for today's secret ballot. As acting president, he has extended a state of emergency that gives police and security forces sweeping powers.

An opposition MP said Wickremesinghe's hardline stance against demonstrators was going down well with MPs who had been at the receiving end of mob violence, and most SLPP legislators would side with him. "Ranil is emerging as the law-and-order candidate," Tamil MP Dharmalingam Sithadthan told AFP. 

His main opponent in the vote will be SLPP dissident and former education minister Dullas Alahapperuma, a former journalist who is being supported by the opposition.

He is expected to name Sajith Premadasa as his prime minister if he emerges victorious in today’s election.

The third candidate is Anura Dissanayake, 53, leader of the leftist People's Liberation Front (JVP), whose coalition has only three MPs.