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.

Sri Lankans on Thursday began casting their ballots in a snap parliamentary election widely considered to be a chance for the new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to secure an imperative mandate for his pro-poor policies.

But investors worry Dissanayake's desire to revisit the terms of the IMF bailout could delay future disbursements, and make it harder for Sri Lanka to hit that primary surplus target. "In past elections, people did not have confidence in us but in ...