Colombo: One of the 39 candidates in the fray in Sri Lanka’s presidential election scheduled for September 21 has passed away. Idroos Mohamed Ilyas, 79, an independent candidate from the north-western Puttalam district died last night from a heart attack while he was being taken to a hospital, his family said.
He was a member of parliament in the 1990s representing the island’s nine per cent Muslim minority from the northern district of Jaffna. His name with his electoral symbol, ‘injection syringe’, was placed fourth from the top of the lengthy ballot paper made so by the record 39 candidates, four more in comparison to the previous election held in November 2019.
The election commission officials said his name would not be removed from the ballot paper despite his death. In the 1994 presidential election, the then-main opposition challenger was killed in a suicide bomb explosion. His widow had replaced him in the ballot paper.
Incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe, the main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, and the leader of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Anura Kumara Dissanayake are the front runners.
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