Sri Lanka's Dissanayake confident of winning Lanka presidency

National People's Power (NPP) leader and presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake has rounded up his campaign for the upcoming presidential election in Sri Lanka exuding confidence in the former Marxist party's first election since its first formation in 1965.

The campaigning for the presidential elections in the island nation ended on Wednesday, 48 hours before the election. The country will go to polls on September 21.

"Our victory is assured, we will definitely form the government by winning the presidency in the 22nd morning", Dissanayake said at his well-attended last rally at Nugegoda, a populous Colombo suburb.

Dissanayake said his NPP would bring in total governance and social transformation after their victory.

"We have had unbelievable support from all sections of people, including Tamil and Muslim minorities. Ours will be a true Sri Lankan government which had only remained a dream during our years of hard struggles.'' His Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has formed National People's Power (NPP) to bury the unsavoury past of the JVP who had led bloody rebellions in 1971 and again between 1987-90 to overthrow democratic governments.

The country now is under two days of campaign lull before the election on Saturday. No campaigning is permitted today and tomorrow.

A new president in Sri Lanka will be elected for a five-year term, the first election since the worst economic crisis in the country in 73 years.

The incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe, one of the three frontrunners, during his rally on Wednesday, said that the current programme of the economic recovery under IMF reform was of paramount importance to prevent the country from falling into another bankruptcy.

"I want to build a future for the younger generations to ensure Sri Lanka wouldn't depend on borrowing money and going into debt,'' the 75-year-old leader said.

He said both Dissanayake's and the other front-runner Sajith Premadasa's policies would lead to another economic meltdown. The people should vote wisely to sustain economic recovery.

Premadasa told his final rally that he was certain of his victory by over 2 million votes majority.

He would usher in a new era of economic prosperity. He would grant concessions to people hit by the economic crisis.

Polling will take place between 7 am to 5 pm on Saturday at over 13,400 polling stations with over 17 million of the island's 21 million population as registered voters.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)