Word: fonseka
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...tight electoral contest predicted between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and retired Army commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka failed to materialize when Sri Lanka went to the polls on Tuesday. Instead, Rajapaksa won easily - with 57.9% of the vote, by official count, 1.8 million more votes than Fonseka, who received around 40%. But Fonseka immediately rejected the result, alleging vote-rigging, prompting a tense standoff...
...three people have been killed in election-related violence in Kurunegala, 100 km north of Colombo, and one in the southern district of Hambantota. The dead include a 60-year-old woman, who was shot when an unidentified group opened fire on a busload of people returning from a Fonseka rally. Another Fonseka supporter was clubbed to death on Jan. 18. A bomb targeting a ruling-party politician killed one Rajapaksa supporter; another was shot when two rival groups clashed. Five days before the election, the house of Tiran Alles, a key Fonseka aide and former ally of Rajapaksa...
...there is violence on polling day, voters may stay home in fear, CaFFE's Thenakoon warns. That's a big risk for the opposition, as Fonseka supporters say that the higher the voter turnout, the better his chance of ousting Rajapaksa. "They want to keep us away from the booths," Fonseka told the crowd at his final election rally on Jan. 23. "We should not get scared, we should go and vote." (See pictures of life in the territories previously controlled by the Tamil Tigers...
...called early by Rajapaksa, who is seeking to validate his victory against the LTTE. Instead, many voters are taking the opportunity to send him a message that they are still suffering economically. Karu de Silva, a resident of Colombo and father of two, says he plans to vote for Fonseka because he feels that Rajapaksa's government has not given families any relief from rising prices. "This year I spent probably twice as much as I spent last year on the books for the new school year," de Silva says. "We need some kind of help...
...other important voting bloc is Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. With Rajapaksa and Fonseka expected to split the vote of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, Tamils could become kingmakers. But election monitors have serious concerns about their access to the polls. There are about 170,000 recently resettled war refugees, and another 108,000 displaced people who are still held in camps. The Rajapaksa administration has repeatedly said they will all have a chance to vote, but only 35,000 of the displaced have been registered according to officials at People's Action for Free and Fair Elections, the country...