Mark Tranand Dinuk Samarasinghe - Sri Lanka will on Tuesday hold its first presidential elections since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, amid allegations that the ruling party is planning to stir up violence in a desperate attempt to cling on to power.
The increasingly bitter election campaign came to an end this weekend with final rallies for the two main candidates, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka, the former head of the army.
The two men are widely seen as the chief architects of last year's victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But since putting an end to one of the world's longest running insurgencies they have turned on each other in an escalating round of accusations and insults.
On Saturday Fonseka warned of vote-rigging and suggested that the army might stage a coup if Rajapaksa loses. "The violence will reduce voter attendance, then the rigging will take place," he said.
A government spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, denied the opposition's allegation. "They know that there is an imminent defeat and this is their usual excuse to cover up a humiliating defeat," he told the Associated Press.
The run-up to the vote has already been marred by violence. Police say at least four people have been killed and hundreds wounded in clashes between the factions and on Friday the house of an influential opposition figure was bombed.
Fonseka, who decided to challenge Rajapaksa after complaining of being sidelined, has dismissed the president as a "cardboard king". Rajapaksa's supporters, meanwhile, have portrayed Fonseka as a dictator in the making, comparing him to Idi Amin, the brutal Ugandan military leader. Amid the name-calling, there lurks the real fear that violence will escalate if the result is disputed.
With the Sinhalese vote expected to be split, both men have courted the Tamil minority, who make up 12% of the population – and who bore the brunt of the bloody campaign to defeat the Tigers. Sri Lanka's main Tamil party has thrown its weight behind the former general despite his ruthless conduct of the campaign against the Tigers.
The Tamil National Alliance, formerly the LTTE, considers Rajapaksa, who is seeking a second six-year term, the greater evil. The TNA has said it could not back Rajapaksa because of the government's human rights abuses and its inability to achieve reconciliation between the Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities following the end of the 25-year civil war.
"We have no faith in either of the candidates. However a majority of TNA MPs believe that they want a change, so that's why we decided in favour of Fonseka," one TNA MP said.
Manikkawasagar (not his real name), a Tamil voter from Jaffna, was once an open supporter of the rebels, but he now plans to vote for Fonseka, "because all this time the president has failed to listen to us".
Prominent Sri Lankan blogger Jude Fernando called on Tamils to back the former army chief. "Whether or not Fonseka can win, if we work to increase the number of votes he receives, we can hope for a stronger opposition in the future, and we can successfully expand the space for democracy," he said. "We can make it more likely that one day we will be able to hold the ruling party accountable, and we can exert pressure to make the next general election much more just and fair."
But a Tamil truck driver from Jaffna, who also asked not to be named, said he would vote for the president. "When the war was going on, we suffered enormously at the hands of both pro-LTTE and pro-government groups. But all that ended with the elimination of the LTTE. Although many young people want a change, we who have seen much in life strongly believe that credit goes to the president," he said.
Rajapaksa and Fonseka have been accused of human rights violations, and a US state department report in October said the military took actions that could be described as war crimes. The UN says 7,000 Tamil civilians may have died in the final months of the fighting, though the government denies this.
In one key difference between the two men, Fonseka, who survived a Tamil Tiger suicide bomb attack in 2006, has said he is willing to face scrutiny for his role in the war, but Rajapaksa is adamant that none of his men be tried. Fonseka has also promised to rein in the almost unchecked powers that the president enjoys and free thousands of young Tamil men suspected of rebel links.
Rajapaksa, for his part, has eased some of the travel restrictions in the Tamil-dominated north after opening up sealed camps where more than 270,000 Tamils were interned for months. More than 100,000 still remain in those camps.
Government officials say the authorities have stepped up security to ensure the vote goes ahead smoothly.
© Guardian
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