Colombo - (AFP) - Three candidates named Tuesday are competing to succeed former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country and resigned last week due to the worsening economic crisis in Sri Lanka .

The winner will take over the presidency of a country in bankruptcy and hold talks with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout plan at a time when the 22 million people suffer severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

Parliament announced that acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe would compete with former Education Minister Dolas Alhabiruma (who has the support of the opposition) and left-wing leader Anura Dissanayake in a secret ballot on Wednesday.

The deputies formally named the three candidates during a session that lasted less than ten minutes in the heavily guarded parliament building.
Moments earlier, opposition leader Sajit Premadasa announced on Twitter that he was withdrawing from the race in favor of Alahabiruma, 63, who split from the Rajapaksa party.

"For the sake of the country that I love and the people that I cherish, I am withdrawing my candidacy for the post of president," Premadasa said.

Political sources said that they reached an agreement during the night stipulating that one of them assume the presidency and the second the prime minister and work to form a unity government that will lead the country out of its economic crisis.

But Wickremesinghe, 73, a political veteran who has served as prime minister six times, has official support from leaders of the Rajapaksa party, which remains the largest in the 225-member parliament.

The third candidate is Anura Dissanayake, 53, leader of the leftist People's Liberation Front, which holds three seats in parliament.

A fourth candidate, former army chief Sarat Fonseca, failed to win the support of lawmakers to run for the presidency.

The new president will hold power for the remainder of Rajapaksa's term, which lasts until November 2024.