Sri Lanka chooses president for the first time since the defeat of Tamil Tigers

Sri Lanka war victors vie in presidential poll

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankans crowded polling stations Tuesday to choose between two Sinhalese war heroes — the president and his former army chief — in an election that could be decided by minority Tamils, who suffered most from the government offensive to end the civil conflict.

While voting among the Sinhalese majority appeared strong, turnout was sparse in some northern Tamil areas, their traditional bastions where the most intense fighting drove hundreds of thousands from their homes.

The minority community had been expected to play a pivotal role in the contest between the two men lauded as war heroes by the Sinhalese majority.

The race between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former army chief Sarath Fonseka was bitter from the start, with the general accusing his former boss of entrenched corruption and the president branding Fonseka a dictator-in-waiting.

Both men promised to lead the nation into an economic renaissance, but neither laid out detailed plans to resolve the anger and hatred between the Tamils and the Sinhalese that sparked the civil war in the first place.

“Rajapaksa managed to fulfill his promise of ending the war, but ultimately failed to bring a solution to the ethnic problems and solve the problems of the Tamil-speaking people,” said Dashika Manuranga, 23-year-old college student who lives near Colombo and voted for Fonseka.

Others at the crowded voting stations around the capital were concerned with the economic suffering still plaguing the country eight months after the war ended.

Nadher Buhari, 22, said his Colombo coffee shop has been suffering because people do not have money to spend, and food prices keep rising.

“We want to see a change,” he said. “If Fonseka wins, we have some hope. If not, we are lost.”

Rajapaksa, however, still retains strong support for leading the nation to victory in the war.

“Mahinda must win,” Priyanthi Ovitigala, 42, said before voting in Gampaha. “This freedom is more important than anything else. No previous political leader could win the war.”

While no major violence was reported, rights groups have accused Rajapaksa of misusing state resources — and monopolizing coverage on state TV — to bolster his campaign. The opposition expressed fears of vote rigging, an accusation that may have been bolstered when Fonseka himself was prevented from voting because his name was not on registration lists.

Authorities also placed armed troops outside media offices in the capital, saying it was a safety measure that would last three or four days.

A media rights group, meanwhile, accused the government of blocking access inside the country of several Sri Lankan online news portals.

“Such censorship reflects a beleaguered government’s nervousness and readiness to resort to manipulation,” the Reporters Without Borders said in a statement late Tuesday.

Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena denied that the Web sites are blocked by the government.

Overall turnout was around 70 percent, but only between 15 and 20 percent of registered voters turned up at the polls in the north, where the Tamils worst affected by the war lived. Turnout may have been further suppressed by an early morning explosion in the northern city of Jaffna that election monitors said was a grenade attack.

Tamil parties joined a diverse array of opposition parties in supporting Fonseka, but the lack of participation by minority voters in the areas where war has left tens of thousands homeless and living in camps could scupper the opposition’s effort to unseat Rajapaksa.

Low Tamil turnout in the north also indicates the difficulties the next president will face in finding a political solution that could secure peace with a minority that feels marginalized and discriminated by the state.

“That is probably the main problem that held back this country for the last 30 years and dragged it into war, repression and human rights violations,” said Jehan Perera, a political analyst in Colombo.

Nevertheless, some Tamil voters from the Manik Farm camp in the north, where civilians displaced from the war zone are living, walked about a half-mile (a kilometer) to polling centers set up at a nearby village.

For Krishnan Indraraja, 29, this was the first time ever he had voted. It was the novelty, not the issues, that brought him to the booth, he said.

“I don’t care about the candidates. The people were talking a lot about the elections so I was curious to come and see what it is,” Indraraja said.

In a separate area in Vavuniya, authorities bused in former rebel fighters from rehabilitation camps to vote, but they mainly chatted with long lost comrades and some did not even bother voting.

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 if elected.

Some fear a possible dispute over the results could lead to street protests and violence.

As he cast his ballot at a school in his home village of Medamulana in southern Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa appealed for calm — and expressed confidence in his fate.

“I urge everyone to cooperate for a peaceful election and to celebrate victory peacefully tomorrow,” he said.

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Associated Press reporter Bharatha Mallawarchi contributed to this report.