By Uditha Jayasinghe and Sudipto Ganguly
COLOMBO (Reuters) -Sri Lankans voted on Saturday in an election to pick a president who will face the task of bolstering the country's fragile economic recovery following its worst financial crisis in decades.
The election is predicted to be a close contest between President Ranil Wickremesinghe, main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Marxist-leaning challenger Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Dissanayake narrowly led in one recent opinion poll.
Voting closed at 4 p.m. (1030 GMT) and counting started afterward, with results expected to be announced by the Election Commission on Sunday. Postal votes were to be counted first, senior commission official Saman Sri Ratnayake, told Reuters.
The country's election system allows voters to cast three preferential votes for their chosen candidates. If no candidate wins 50% in the first count, a second round of counting determines the winner between the two top candidates, using the preferential votes. Analysts say this will likely be the case given the close nature of the election.
Saturday's voting was peaceful across the South Asian island nation and queues outside booths lengthened as the day progressed, local TV channels showed. More than 13,000 polling stations were set up and 250,000 public officials were deployed to manage the election, the election body said.
More than 17 million of Sri Lanka's 22 million people were eligible to vote in the election, contested by some 38 candidates.
At Visakha Vidyalaya, a school about 15 km (9 miles) from Colombo, brisk polling was seen early in the morning as families, some of them accompanying their ageing parents, lined up next to coir ropes that created orderly lines for voters.
"I think we desperately need a change and I think a lot of people feel the same way. For us to have a future the entire country must have a future, first," said Niroshan Perera, 36, a supporter of Dissanayake.
This was Sri Lanka's first election since the economy buckled in 2022 under a severe foreign exchange shortage, leaving the country unable to pay for imports of essentials including fuel, medicine and cooking gas.
Thousands of protesters marched in Colombo in 2022 and occupied the president's office and residence, forcing then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and later resign.
Buttressed by a $2.9 billion bailout programme from the International Monetary Fund, the economy has posted a tentative recovery but the high cost of living is still a critical issue for many voters.
Although inflation cooled to 0.5% last month from a crisis high of 70%, and the economy is forecast to grow in 2024 for the first time in three years, millions remain mired in poverty and debt, with many pinning hopes of a better future on their next leader.
"This is an election that will change the history of Sri Lanka. People are voting enthusiastically," Dissanayake said after casting his vote at a temple in the outskirts of Colombo.
The winner will have to ensure Sri Lanka sticks with the IMF programme until 2027 to get its economy on a stable growth path, reassure markets, attract investors and help a quarter of its people climb out of poverty.
"The people have to decide the future of this country. I ask everyone to vote peacefully," Wickremesinghe, accompanied by his wife, said after voting at the University of Colombo.
"We have stabilised the government and the democratic system. I'm happy I've been able to make a major contribution to that."