People in Sri Lanka are voting in snap parliamentary elections, barely seven weeks after choosing a new president. More than 8,800 candidates are in the fray in an election marked by a low-key campaign.

Sri Lankans are voting in a parliamentary election that's key for their new, Marxist-leaning president to consolidate his party’s power and follow through on promises of economic recovery.

Sri Lanka holds a snap election on Thursday which will determine if the South Asian island nation wants to empower its new, leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to push his anti-poverty policies as it recovers from a financial meltdown.