Two years ago, tens of thousands of Sri Lankans rose up against their president and forced him to flee the country.

COLOMBO, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Sri Lankans will vote for a new president in a tightly contested election on Saturday, with the outcome expected to determine the fate of fragile economic recovery led by incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe who is facing off with left-leaning rivals.

Sri Lankans who usually vote along religious and ethnic lines will be keeping the state of the economy in mind when they vote Saturday on a new president.

Sajith Premadasa, the leader of Sri Lanka's main opposition party, is a frontrunner in Saturday's presidential election and a win will hand him the top job more than 30 years after his father was assassinated while holding the same post.

Sri Lankan housewife Lankika Dilrukshi says she is tired of the daily struggle needed to provide for her children. Dilrukshi, 31, is one of the millions of people barely able to make ends meet since the island nation's economy plunged into its worst financial crisis in decades in 2022.

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 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.