Sri Lanka Govt wins key election in east

Sun, May 11 06:20 PM

Sri Lanka's ruling alliance won crucial elections in the island's war-ravaged east and hailed the result on Sunday as an endorsement of its war to defeat Tamil Tiger rebels.

But election monitors and the opposition said the poll was marred by cheating, with armed former rebels now backed by the government accused of intimidating voters.

The council elections, the first in the ethnically-mixed region for two decades, took place against a backdrop of violence blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east.

A 'Black Tiger' suicide squad sank a naval ship in the eastern port of Trincomalee hours before the polls opened on Saturday. A day earlier a bomb in a crowded cafe in eastern Sri Lanka had killed 12 people and injured 29.

"It is a clear mandate against terrorism," Keheliya Rambuwella, a government minister and defence spokesman, said soon after the election results were released.

"We have liberated the east from the clutches of LTTE, then we have given them the economic liberation and now political liberation, now the power is in the hands of people."

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), allied with the TMVP, a grouping of Tiger defectors accused by rights groups of abductions and extrajudicial killings, won 20 seats in a 37-member provincial council.

Rajapaksa says the poll was crucial to restore democracy to the eastern coastal region, held by the Tigers until last year, and allow development after 25 years of war.

The elections were also part of the government's blueprint for devolution in minority Tamil areas, which it hopes will go hand-in-hand with its push to win the war, still raging in the north, in which tens of thousands of people have died.

"We will be liberating the north and will give them also the chance of political liberation soon," Rambukwella said.

VOTE-RIGGING

The TMVP, made up of fighters who defected from the mainstream Tigers in 2004 and helped the government evict their former comrades from the east of the island, were accused of election violence by monitors.

"At almost every station in Batticaloa, rigging took place by misusing the temporally identity cards issued by the local authorities and Opposition polling agents or election observers were threatened and forced to leave in many polling stations," said Sunanda Deshapriya, of the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence.

Security was tightened for the polls in the eastern districts of Trincomalee, Ampara and Batticaloa, where nearly 1 million people voted for 1,342 candidates.

The vote underpins the ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government's twin strategy to defeat the rebels using both the ballot box and a current military offensive.

Analysts saw the election as a referendum on the government's military strategy against the Tigers.

Rajapaksa formally scrapped a six-year truce in January. The military quickly stepped up its war against the rebels in their northern stronghold, leading to a surge in casualties on both sides and suicide blasts in the capital.

"We don't mind whoever comes to power," said V Krishna, a 61-year-old father-of-five who was resettled six months ago after being driven from his home by the fighting.

"We want a peaceful life and normalcy in the area. We are still on government rations and we can't live like this for ever. I'm running a small shop, but people in the village do not have money to buy goods."

The main Opposition United National Party, which contested the election allied with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), won 15 seats, and accused the government of trying to hand over the east to an armed group.

"The government had a field day with the TMVP and rigged votes, especially in Tamil areas," said Rauff Hakeem, leader of the SLMC and Opposition Chief Ministerial candidate.

"With evidence we are going to prove how the government along with the TMVP rigged this election."

The remaining two seats were won by two smaller parties. Provincial council elections are held every five years, but elections in the north and east have been repeatedly postponed because of continued fighting since 1988.

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