SRI LANKA’S President Mahinda Rajapakse has been re-elected after a bitterly fought election, state television has reported, as troops surrounded the hotel of his main rival, former general Sarath Fonseka, who has appealed for foreign protection.
“It is a resounding victory for the president,” the state-run Rupavahini channel announced yesterday even though formal results from the Election Commission were awaited.
Mr Rajapakse’s spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage said the president had won his second term polling 1.8 million votes more than his nearest rival and former army chief out of more than 9.84 million ballots cast.
In response, the opposition condemned what it called the military’s “unfathomable” intimidation of its candidate. Mr Fonseka’s spokesman Mano Ganeshan said they would appeal for outside protection.
“I am going to meet a diplomat of a neighbouring country to seek assurances of the safety of Sarath Fonseka,” Mr Ganeshan said in an apparent reference to neighbouring India, which has been closely watching the elections in the island republic it considers as part of its security and strategic ambit.
The government had earlier accused Mr Fonseka of employing a private militia consisting of army deserters, a charge he denied.
However tension spread across the capital Colombo after some 100 heavily armed soldiers were deployed outside Mr Fonseka’s hotel once state television announced Mr Rajapakse’s victory.
This followed information that these army deserters were among some 400 people gathered inside.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said, however, that the deployment was a “protective measure” for those inside the hotel.
The campaign’s vitriolic nature, the personal animosity between the two rivals and accusations of hatching conspiracies and coups had triggered concern that any outcome of the elections would be contested and could foment unrest.
The president’s party accuses Mr Fonseka of courting Tamil separatists while he, in turn, charged Mr Rajapakse with vote-rigging and violence. Both men denied the allegations.
The presidential contest was a straight race between Mr Rajapakse and Mr Fonseka who together had defeated the 30-year long Tamil insurgency last May which had claimed more than 80,000 lives, wrecked the economy and had cast a constant pall of fear over the island.
However, the two fell out after Mr Fonseka claimed to have been sidelined and he opted to challenge his boss on an anti-corruption platform. The election had been brought forward by two years by Mr Rajapakse, keen to capitalise on his success in ending the deleterious civil war.
Both candidates had promised voters costly subsidies and public-sector pay rises but economists said this would be difficult to enforce under the terms of a $2.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.