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Election officials and security personnel transport sealed ballot boxes to a counting centre at the end of voting in Sri Lanka's legislative elections in Colombo on Thursday. | AFP photo

Sri Lanka’s new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake was confident of a victory as polls closed in Thursday’s snap legislative elections.

Dissanayake took power in September presidential elections on a promise to combat graft and recover the country’s stolen assets, two years after an unprecedented economic meltdown, when then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted.