Bloomberg - Sri Lanka will hold elections in September to elect a new president as the incumbent leader Ranil Wickremesinghe seeks a mandate for his tough fiscal reforms in the South Asian nation that’s trying to move past its worst financial crisis on record.

The Election Commission said the vote will be carried out on Sept. 21 with nominations for presidential candidates due on Aug. 15, according to a government notice. The elections will be the first for the country after a historic debt default in May 2022 that saw living standards plummet and widespread unrest, forcing the populist Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.

Wickremesinghe, 75, who took the presidency through a parliament vote, went on to negotiate a $3 billion bailout package with the International Monetary Fund. A career politician who has been prime minister five times, Wickremesinghe has become deeply unpopular for his austerity measures that include raising taxes, hiking utility prices and putting some state enterprises up for sale.

His key contenders are likely to be Sajith Premadasa, 57, who leads the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya party, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 55, of the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna party. While it started out as a radical group and led insurrections against the government in the 1970s and 1980s, it has become a socialist party that Sri Lankans are increasingly backing over the traditional parties led by the elites.