Sri Lankans go to the polls this weekend for the country’s first election since defaulting on piles of sovereign debt in 2022, when the nation plunged into its worst economic crisis across 70 years of independence.

Scarred by a decades-long civil war and struggling to survive in Sri Lanka's crippled economy, ethnic minority Tamils in the island nation say they have little hope that Saturday's presidential election will improve their lot by much.

Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe did not scrap his re-election campaign days before the bankrupt nation voted in the first poll since its economic collapse, contrary to claims spread online.