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Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa wins election
Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa wins election | World news | guardian.co.uk
Reports: Rajapaksa wins in Sri Lanka - The National Newspaper
The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has won the country's first election since the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels, state television reported today.
Final results have yet to be declared, but Rupavahini Television said that Rajapaksa had decisively beaten the main opposition candidate, Sarath Fonseka, a former army chief.
Earlier, hundreds of troops surrounded the hotel where Fonseka is holed up.
Both men are considered war heroes by the Sinhalese majority for leading the country to victory eight months ago in its long civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, but after a bitter falling out Fonseka quit, joined the opposition and challenged the president.
Throughout the campaign, the opposition accused Rajapaksa of plotting to rig the vote and steal the election. Fonseka was unable to vote yesterday because he was not registered. It was unclear whether he had failed to register or had tried and been left off the voter rolls.
Initial results today showed Rajapaksa leading with 3,563,634 votes compared with 2,209,214 for Fonseka, a 23 percentage point difference There are 14 million registered voters, and the overall turnout during yesterday's polling was around 70%.
As the results were being announced, troops surrounded the Cinnamon Lake Hotel. A military spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, said about 400 people, including alleged army deserters, had gathered inside with Fonseka.
"We don't know what's their motive and as a protective measure, we have deployed troops around the hotel and people who go in and come out are being checked," Nanayakkara said, adding that there were no plans to arrest Fonseka.
Jehan Perera, a political analyst in Colombo, called the military presence at the hotel "absolutely unprecedented".
"It reflects the suspicion and the level of mistrust," he said.
Attempts to reach Fonseka were not immediately successful.
Fonseka remained popular with the troops he led to victory against the Tamil Tigers after 25 years of civil war, and the government was worried that he might claim electoral fraud and try to rally his former soldiers, Perera said.
The race has been acrimonious from the start, with the general accusing his former boss of entrenched corruption and the president branding Fonseka a dictator-in-waiting. Rights groups have accused Rajapaksa of misusing state resources – including monopolising coverage on state TV – to bolster his campaign.
State media interspersed reports of initial returns today with songs and programming featuring Rajapaksa, and the information minister, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, told the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation that the results so far showed the president "heading for a historic victory".
No major violence was reported during yesterday's polling.
After the polls closed, government officials said they would seek to disqualify Fonseka's candidacy because he was not registered to vote, but the electoral commissioner later issued a statement saying that Fonseka's voting status was irrelevant to his candidacy.
Voting among the Sinhalese majority appeared to be strong, but turnout was sparse in some northern Tamil areas, where the most intense fighting drove hundreds of thousands from their homes.
The minority community had been expected to support Fonseka and play a possibly pivotal role in the results.
Rajapaksa campaigned on his war record and his promises to bring development to the nation. Fonseka promised to trim the powers of the presidency and empower parliament .
Some observers fear that a dispute over the results could lead to street protests and violence.
Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa wins election | World news | guardian.co.uk
Reports: Rajapaksa wins in Sri Lanka - The National Newspaper
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