Sri Lanka's defeated presidential candidate in hiding

Sri Lanka's defeated presidential candidate who failed in a bid to unseat incumbent Mahinda Rajapakse was in hiding Thursday in Colombo after warning of possible attempts on his life.

Former four-star general Sarath Fonseka was resoundingly defeated in the country's first post-war election and was then stripped of his 80-strong state security team which he said he needed to keep him safe.

"We have moved to a house in Colombo, but I can't tell you the location for obvious reasons," one of Fonseka's bodyguards told AFP late Wednesday.

In a day of high drama Wednesday that followed a bitter and vitriolic contest between the former allies, Fonseka rejected Rajapakse's victory and said he would mount a legal challenge.

Throughout the day, he was surrounded by heavily armed soldiers in a luxury hotel in central Colombo and he claimed he was unable to leave because he would be arrested or assassinated.

He eventually slipped out unimpeded after dark.

Rajapakse rode a wave of support among the majority Sinhalese population in the south to win the election, but he lost out to Fonseka in the Tamil areas in the north.

The 64-year-old president, who has close family members in key government positions, is a Sinhalese nationalist who ordered an offensive after taking office in 2005 to crush Tamil rebels and their 37-year separatist struggle.

The battle against the Tamil Tigers, who took up arms in 1972, has since been mired in war crimes allegations. Fonseka was the army chief credited with the military victory.

Analysts say Sri Lanka faces an enormous task in rebuilding its economy and is under stiff international pressure to secure a lasting political solution that addresses the grievances of its large Tamil minority.

Rajapakse and Fonseka, who belong to the Sinhalese majority, had both courted Tamil voters during the campaign with pledges of greater political inclusion and investment in the devastated northeast.

"I want to reach out to the Tamil people even though they did not vote for me this time," Rajapakse told reporters.

"What is important is to get them involved in a truly democratic election process," he added.

"We can sit and talk with them. See what their problems are. We can work together."

Rajapakse also said Wednesday that he was keen to repair relations with Western nations that were strained during the conflict due to criticism of Colombo's human rights record from the US, Britain and the European Union.

"Most of our misunderstandings were due to the fighting. It is over now. I am on my second (and final) term and we can work together to address any outstanding issues," he said from his residence.

Sri Lanka increasingly distanced itself from the West as it came under fire for its human rights record. It has built ties with China and Iran and last year hosted Myanmar's reclusive military leader Than Shwe.

Fonseka said Wednesday that he and the assorted coalition of opposition parties that backed him would challenge the election verdict, making their next step the filing of a petition at the Supreme Court.

But he also suggested he might have to flee abroad because the government had stripped him of his security, which he said was a deliberate ploy to leave him vulnerable to assassination by militants or government loyalists.

"They will try to assassinate me and then blame it on someone else," he told reporters.

Leaving the country in the short-term might be the best option, said the father-of-two who holds a US Green Card that gives him residency rights in the country.

Independent election monitors criticised the abuse of state resources by the government for campaigning ahead of the election, as well as violence on election day particularly in the north.

They stopped short of repudiating the vote, however.

© AFP

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Sri Lanka: President’s New Term Time for Accountability

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and key international actors should take steps to bring accountability for Sri Lanka's grave human rights violations so that the thousands of victims will not continue to be denied justice during President Mahinda Rajapaksa's second term, Human Rights Watch said today.

The human rights situation in Sri Lanka deteriorated markedly during Rajapaksa's first term, and he failed to hold perpetrators accountable. During the final months of the 26-year-long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ended with the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, both government and LTTE forces committed numerous serious violations of international humanitarian law, in which more than 7,000 civilians died in what the UN called a "bloodbath."

"The human rights situation in Sri Lanka plummeted to new depths on Rajapaksa's watch," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The president deftly played a false conflict between rights and the fight against terrorism in his first term. But with the war over, the UN and other international actors should loudly insist on justice for victims."

Rajapaksa was elected to a second term on January 26, 2010, in a hotly contested election in which his former army chief, retired Gen. Sarath Fonseka, was the runner-up. Although election day was relatively peaceful, according to election monitors, the campaign was marked by hundreds of incidents of violence in which at least four people were killed.

During and after the war, Rajapaksa's government confined nearly 300,000 internally displaced persons to large detention camps, where they were deprived of their liberty and freedom of movement in violation of international law. The government has separated more than 11,000 LTTE suspects from their families at checkpoints and in the camps, denying them due process, such as right to legal counsel and the right to have a court review their detention.

Threats and attacks against outspoken and critical civil society figures increased, and the government used anti-terror laws and emergency regulations against peaceful critics, further diminishing the space for public debate. The hostile, sometimes deadly, media environment drove dozens of journalists into exile.

Enforced disappearances and abductions, a longstanding and widespread problem in Sri Lanka, sharply increased in 2006, when military operations between the government and the LTTE intensified following the collapse of the 2002 ceasefire. In 2006 and 2007, the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances recorded more new "disappearance" cases from Sri Lanka than from any other country in the world.

Politically motivated killings during Rajapaksa's first term also remain unresolved, including the extrajudicial executions of five students in Trincomalee in January 2006 and of 17 aid workers with Action Contre la Faim in Mutur in August 2006.

Rajapaksa took no effective steps to bring accountability for human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said. In July 2009, Rajapaksa disbanded, before it could complete its work, a presidential commission of inquiry created in 2006 to investigate 16 cases of grave human rights violations. In April 2008, the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) had withdrawn from monitoring the commission because it had "not been able to conclude ... that the proceedings of the Commission have been transparent or have satisfied basic international norms and standards."

The vast majority of the hundreds of new "disappearances" and politically motivated killings from the past few years have never been seriously investigated, and none of the perpetrators have been punished.

In May 2009 Rajapaksa promised Ban that the Sri Lankan government would investigate allegations of human rights and laws-of-war violations during the war's final months. No such investigation has taken place. Instead, the government has set up a team of lawyers to respond to allegations about rights violations in reports by the US State Department and the UN special envoy on extrajudicial executions.

Because of the government's failure to investigate serious human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch has long called for an independent international investigation into abuses by all parties to the conflict. Thus far, the secretary-general's office has stated that Ban was "considering" establishing a committee of experts to "assist the government" of Sri Lanka to look at evidence that its soldiers committed war crimes last year.

"The various investigatory bodies set up by President Rajapaksa have spent more energy trying to deflect serious inquiries into abuses than actually conducting them," Adams said. "Ban and key governments should not fall for the same trick again and instead should call for an independent international investigation. The ball is now in Ban's court."

© Human Rights Watch

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Opposition leaders fear arrest

By Yohan Perera - Opposition party leaders who backed General Sarath Fonseka for the presidency yesterday charged that some of them might be arrested.

UNP deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya told journalists they had received information on being harmed and therefore decided to move out of their homes on the eve of the election.

He said he could not divulge some of the details about these threats but revealed they were advised to gather at the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel in Colombo.

Responding to questions asked by the journalists on reports that opposition party leaders including

General Fonseka were seeking the support of some foreign countries, Mr. Jayasuriya said none of the party leaders sought international help but said he was not aware as to whether General Fonseka had done so.

He rejected rumours that General Fonseka was planning to leave the country and said he was a Sri Lankan citizen and we don’t see why he could not reside here.

Opposition leaders also dismissed reports that General Fonseka was keeping army deserters and said nine officers who were given to him legally for his security but they were sent back to the Military Police yesterday.

JVP parliamentary group leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake who also attended the news conference said this was the first time that a candidate who lost a presidential election is held under siege by getting the troops to surround the premises he was staying.

“A candidate should have the freedom of movement,” he said.

Mr. Dissanayake said it was essential to put a stop to the undemocratic acts carried out by this government.

Meanwhile General Fonseka who was at the hotel after army troops surrounded the hotel charged that some of the officers stationed around the hotel were making several attempts to enter the hotel forcibly.

He made this charge in a letter to Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake yesterday. He also alleged that some of the officers he returned to the Military Police were made to kneel down.General Fonseka had also told the Commissioner that several of his employees had also been arrested.

The number of troops deployed around the hotel was increased at the time this report was going to the press. The riot squad was also brought in to prevent possible clashes.

© Daily Mirror

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Sri Lanka's poll opens a new political divide

If Australians think about Sri Lanka in other than cricketing contexts, it will most likely be in connection with the island's bitter civil war and the flow of asylum seekers unleashed by the end of that conflict. The seaborne asylum seekers whose desperate plight last year revived contention about refugee policy in this country were Sri Lankan Tamils, which gives Australians - whatever stance they take in the so-called ''border protection'' debate - a particular interest in the outcome of Sri Lanka's presidential election.

In counting yesterday President Mahinda Rajapaksa had established a commanding lead over his main rival, former army chief Sarath Fonseka, after a poll in which more than 70 per cent of eligible Sri Lankans turned out to vote. The acrimonious and sometimes violent campaign preceding the election was evidence - were any needed - that the end of war is not the same as the beginning of peace. The new enmity between Mr Rajapaksa and Mr Fonseka, who worked closely together during Sri Lanka's war against the insurgent Tamil Tigers, suggests that the balance of Sri Lankan politics began to tilt in this election, the first in 26 years not to have been fought against the backdrop of war. That change may ultimately prove to be of greater consequence than the election result itself.

Mr Rajapaksa and Mr Fonseka are both considered heroes by the island's Sinhalese majority because of their victory over the Tigers, though each man claims that the other has tried to deprive him of due credit. Both have also been accused of human rights violations during the war, in which many civilians died. In the aftermath many others were interned, in concentration camp-like squalor, because they were suspected of having supported the Tigers. A US State Department report in October concluded that some of the military's actions could be described as war crimes, and the UN estimates that 7000 Tamil civilians died in the closing months of the war.

The savage repression after the Government's victory caused the exodus of asylum seekers; it did not, however, prevent the Tamil National Alliance, the minority's main political party, aligning itself with the Fonseka cause during the campaign. This was not only because there are no longer any Tigers threatening violent retribution against Tamils who participate in Sri Lankan civil politics, or even because Mr Fonseka has said that he is willing to face scrutiny of his role in the war, which Mr Rajapaksa refuses.

Mr Fonseka campaigned against the concentration of executive power in the office of president, calling for the prerogatives of parliament to be restored. That struck a chord with Tamils, who regard Mr Rajapaksa as the greater evil because of the Government's conduct of the war, with other minorities such as Sri Lanka's Muslim community, and above all with members of the Sinhalese majority alarmed by the spread of corruption in the Government. The result was a broad coalition unimaginable a year ago. It was a tentative alliance, united chiefly by opposition to Mr Rajapaksa and members of his family who have prospered during his time in office. The fact that Mr Fonseka was able to assemble such a coalition at all, however, points to the potential for a transformation of Sri Lankan politics in the years to come.

The pattern of voting in yesterday's election, however, suggests that this prospect remains a remote one. The turnout in Tamil areas was low, depriving Mr Fonseka of votes he needed to counter Mr Rajapaksa's support in the Sinhalese south of the country. It is hardly a surprise that Sri Lanka's old divisions still influence voter attitudes: more than 270,000 Tamils were interned after the war, and more than 100,000 remain in the camps. For the present, however, what matters most is what role military force will play in Sri Lankan politics - and in that respect, the commandos who surrounded Mr Fonseka's hotel yesterday are an ill omen.

© The Age

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Sri Lanka: Hopes and fears after election

By Sara Sidner - Sri Lanka has held its first presidential election since government forces put down a 26-year insurgency by Tamil Tiger rebels.

CNN's Sara Sidner looks at the election, claims of vote rigging from political rivals who were war-time allies, and what the future may hold for Sri Lanka.What is the significance of the elections?

This is the first peacetime election in more than 25 years. Sri Lanka has just emerged from a civil war that has torn the country apart, left tens of thousands displaced, and many argue has stunted the country's growth especially in the north where the war has destroyed much of the infrastructure.

Citizens see this election as an opportunity for the government to move the country forward much more rapidly instead of putting its resources into the war.

Sri Lanka has long been in the spotlight around the world because of the war that pitted a group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), labeled by Washington and the EU a terror organization, against the Sinhalese majority government.

The LTTE started its fight for a separate country in the north as a protest against the government for oppressing the minority Tamil population and treating them as second class citizens.

Why is this election so hotly disputed?

The election pits two powerful men against each other who were just months ago close allies working together to win the war.

The incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is up against his former Army Commander, General Sarath Fonseka. The two men ended up at odds over what appears to be more personal than political.

The moment the war was declared over by the two men -- who are largely credited with winning it -- the president put General Fonseka in a government position that held very little power.

Fonseka felt as if he had been marginalized and at the same time, once he began trying to work with his Commander in Chief in a peacetime setting, the two men did not see eye to eye on the way to go about moving the country forward.

What happened in the election?

Sri Lanka's election campaign season was violent, according to an election monitoring group in the country. There were more than 700 reported incidents of politically motivated violence several of which ended in deaths as the two candidates made their way around the country stumping for votes.

When it came to the actual polling day things cooled way down. Voting was peaceful in the vast majority of the country, except in the north where voters woke up to several explosions hours before the polls opened though no one was injured.

The incumbent, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has won the election with nearly 60 percent of the vote while his main challenger Sarath Fonseka had just over 40 percent, Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake said.

Rajapaksa has claimed victory and will serve a second term while Fonseka says he will not concede the election after accusing the government of fraud.

While the vote was being counted the Rajapaksa-led government sent armed troops to the hotel where Fonseka and several opposition leaders stayed for the night. Fonseka and his supporters moved to the hotel due to fears they would not be safe in their own homes after Fonseka said he had received threatening phone calls.

For nearly 24 hours troops stood outside the hotel prompting Fonseka to accuse the government of trying to intimidate him and his supporters.

Rajapaksa responded that the troops were there for Fonseka's protection and for the protection of the entire hotel since so many political leaders were there -- an explanation Fonseka rejects.

What's possible next?

Fonseka says he will go to all the legal means to try to nullify the election but said he would leave the country for a while if he felt his safety depended on it. Rajapaksa says he will continue his work as president knowing that voters backed him for a second term.

Polls in the Tamil dominated areas showed voters favoring Fonseka. Tamil citizens worry they will continue to be marginalized by the Sinhalese majority government. Tens of thousands of them are still living in displacement camps as victims of the war.

The president has said in the past that there are no more minorities in the country, only Sri Lankans and vowed to make the country whole.

But in an interview he could not spell out exactly what he would do to help make that a reality for the minority Tamil population.

© CNN

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Fonseka rejects Sri Lanka election win for Rajapaksa

Charles Haviland, Colombo - President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been declared the winner of Sri Lanka's presidential poll but the outcome was immediately rejected by his challenger.

Gen Sarath Fonseka promised a legal challenge to the outcome of the ballot, the first since Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated after 25 years of civil war.

The Elections Commission declared Mr Rajapaksa the victor with 57.8% of votes cast, to 40% for his main rival.

Gen Fonseka later left a hotel where he had complained of being intimidated.

He left in a vehicle with security on Wednesday, and prevented troops who had been stationed around the luxury hotel from searching him and his vehicle.

Once he had left the area, the troops immediately took down roadblocks and dispersed.

It was believed his security would be removed when he got to his house, but a military spokesman said 40-50 troops would be retained for him.

A government spokesman had said the troops were at the hotel to look for army deserters, with a military spokesman adding that the troops' deployment was a "protective measure".

The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan, who had been in the same hotel as Gen Fonseka and other opposition leaders, says the troops' presence had created a very tense atmosphere.

An opposition spokesman, Rauf Hakeem, said opposition members had appealed to the government over what he said were "high-handed tactics" intended to intimidate them.

He told reporters there were no deserters inside the hotel.

Gen Fonseka has alleged vote-rigging and has lodged several objections with Sri Lanka's electoral commission by letter. He has also accused the government of wanting to kill him and said it had removed his personal security from the hotel, leaving him vulnerable.

Speaking the BBC's Sinhala service, Gen Fonseka later confirmed that he had reached his home.

"We went to the hotel because there was a threat to my life," he said.

"There is nothing we can do about it. There is no law and order in this country. They are planning to assassinate me."

He did not give any details about any alleged plot to kill him. He added that he was planning to leave the country, but would not say where he was going.

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of the president-elect, has previously expressed concern about Gen Fonseka's allegations that at the end of the war he ordered surrendering Tamil Tiger rebels to be shot. Gotabaya Rajapaksa has denied the claims.

Since he left the army the higher ranks have very much rallied behind Mr Rajapaksa, the BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says. Gen Fonseka also does not have his own party base, having stood for election backed by a disparate group of opposition parties.

Independent election observers have been perturbed by two main elements, our correspondent says, one of which is the amount of violence in the run-up to the election - with most complaints about the perpetration of violence laid at the door of the president's side.

The other is what monitors say is the misuse of public resources and state media, particularly state-run TV, which provided blanket coverage of the incumbent president's campaign.

Some 70% of Sri Lanka's 14 million-strong electorate turned out to vote. However, turn-out in the Tamil areas in the north-east, where the fiercest fighting occurred during the conflict, was less than 30%.

Lucien Rajakarunanayake, a spokesman for Mr Rajapaksa, told the Associated Press news agency that the president had "won a historic and resounding victory in the first free and fair elections held throughout the country since the defeat of terrorism".

Supporters of Mr Rajapaksa celebrated in the streets of Colombo, waving Sri Lankan flags and setting off fireworks.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated Mr Rajapaksa, saying he was confident "Sri Lanka will find lasting peace, where all communities can live with dignity and in harmony."

Millions of Tamils live in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Bitter fight

After a violent and acrimonious campaign, during which four people died and hundreds were wounded, Tuesday's election was largely peaceful.

But there were serious exceptions, especially in the Tamil-populated north.

In the city of Jaffna, the private Centre for Monitoring Election Violence said there were at least six explosions before and just after voting began.

Later there were two blasts in Vavuniya, the town near the huge camps for people displaced by the war. The organisation said it feared this was a systematic attempt to scare people away from voting.

There were also grenade attacks in the Sinhala-dominated centre and south.

It later turned out that Gen Fonseka had not been able to vote because his name was not on the register.

The two men were closely associated with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers last May but fell out soon afterwards. Gen Fonseka quit the military, complaining that he had been sidelined after the war.

The president's side accused the general of courting separatists.

© BBC News

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Asian election monitors calls for voter registration audit

By Sumaiya Rizvi - Asian election monitors are calling for a voter registration audit if claims by local elections monitors of fraud in the counting of votes and disfranchisement of voters are true.

Foreign observer and Mission Director of the Asian Network for Free Election (ANFREL), Ichal Supriady told Daily Mirror online that the accepted methodology of proving that the voter list is clean or dirty would be sorted by a voter registration audit.

A delegation of ANFREL election observers were in Sri Lanka on invitation by the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections.

© Daily Mirror

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URGENT ALERT: NO TRACE OF MISSING JOURNALIST

Prageeth Eknaligoda, a Sri Lankan free-lance journalist, has been missing since 24th Sunday. Prageeth who regularly contributed to LankaeNews web site as a political analyst and a cartoonist, is known for his outspoken criticism of the government.

Earlier, in August 2009, Prageeth was abducted by an unidentified armed group and was detained before being released after severe interrogation. There was no investigation and the perpetrators were never brought to book. His wife has already made several complains to the police - apart from making a public appeal demanding his release.

As he has gone missing for three days, we - the Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka - believe that continuous action is needed to safeguard his life. Please treat this matter with urgency. Make phone calls and send emails to:

The President of Sri Lanka - + 94 112447400/ email -president@presidentsoffice.lk

Secretary to the President - +94 112 2326309 / email - prsec@presidentsoffice.lk

Inspector General of Police Mahinda Balasuriya - +94 112 421750 / +94 773088400 email - igp@police.lk

(please send copies of your emails to journalistsfordemocracy@gmail.com)

Executive Committee
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka
27.01.2010

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Sri Lanka presidential challenger says fears arrest

By Ranga Sirilal and C. Bryson Hull - Sri Lanka's top opposition candidate said troops had surrounded his hotel on Wednesday, after polling in Sri Lanka's first post-war presidential election ended with the revelation that he was not a registered voter.

Incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa's coalition said it would challenge General Sarath Fonseka's eligibility in court, after the Election Commission said the fact he had not registered did not by itself affect his ability to stand for election

"The government has taken the position that he was cheating the country that he had a vote," Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Reuters. "The legal people are looking at it, but it may be only of academic interest if he loses."

The latest intrigue built after a surprisingly close and bitter contest between two estranged allies who led Sri Lanka to victory over the Tamil Tiger separatists in May, after a 25-year civil war many had deemed unwinnable.

Election observers said between 70-80 percent of Sri Lanka's 14 million registered voters turned out for Tuesday's vote, which went ahead smoothly despite some minor blasts and other incidents in which no one was hurt.

Early counting from postal votes showed Rajapaksa winning most districts with 62.9 percent to 36.1 percent for Fonseka out of more than 320,000 votes. Other candidates had the remainder.

HOTEL SURROUNDED

Early on Wednesday, Fonseka said soldiers had surrounded the Cinnamon Lakeside hotel in the capital, Colombo, where he was staying with former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the official opposition leader, and other opposition party heads.

"These people have surrounded the hotel with military and threatened my security people," Fonseka told Reuters by phone. "They had a plan to surround us and take us into custody and I don't know if this is that phase of that particular operation."

A military spokesman had no immediate comment.

Fonseka in the final days of the campaign said the government had plans to either steal the vote or arrest him should he win. The government laughed it off, saying Rajapaksa would win the race cleanly and had no need to cheat.

Both camps on Wednesday said they were confident of victory.

More than 68,000 police were deployed during voting to keep order after a bloody campaign in which five people were killed and 800 violent incidents were recorded.

A senior military source and a top presidential aide said that Fonseka had been put under watch to ensure he did not attempt to organise a coup with his own loyalists in the army he commanded just eight months ago.

"The government doesn't want him to take the first step towards a coup," the military officer said on condition of anonymity.

The general, 59, fell under suspicion of plotting a coup immediately after the war, which analysts say led Rajapaksa, 64, to promote him to a job with no control over troops.

Fonseka said the sidelining and accusations prompted him to retire and enter the race with the backing of a coalition of diverse opposition parties whose sole aim has been to beat Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa called the poll two years early, hoping to capitalise on his post-war popularity.

On Tuesday, Fonseka found himself in the embarrassing position of telling reporters he "may have voted" but didn't want to say if he had "due to security reasons." He later admitted he was not on the voter rolls.

Fonseka as army commander ran a relentless counterinsurgency campaign to crush the Tigers, while Rajapaksa deflected an international push for a cease-fire and criticism over civilian deaths that prompted calls for a war crimes probe.

Whoever wins will take the reins of a $40 billion economy which has enjoyed a partial peace dividend, and is on the path to recovery with big Chinese and Indian investments into infrastructure and plans to put $4 billion into development.

Foreign investors have put more than $1.5 billion into government securities, and the Colombo Stock Exchange, turned in one of 2009's best returns at 125 percent.

Both Rajapaksa and Fonseka have pledged to dole out costly subsidies and public sector pay rises, which economists say will make it hard for Sri Lanka to meet its cost-cutting obligations under a $2.6 billion International Monetary Fund loan.

© Reuters

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Rajapaksa ahead in Sri Lanka vote

Early results in Sri Lanka's presidential elections have indicated a substantial lead for Mahinda Rajapaksa, the incumbent, over chief rival Sarath Fonseka.

Election officials said on Wednesday that Rajapaksa had 723,362 votes so far and Fonseka had 460,725.

The counting continues amid growing tensions as troops have surrounded the Cinnamon Lakeside hotel in Colombo where Fonseka is staying, since early on Wednesday.

Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from the capital, said the intense cordon of military personnel was, according to the presidential office, for Fonseka's protection.

The opposition candidate has admitted he was not registered as a voter and the presidential office said that revelation could create security issues, our correspondent said.

Fonseka told the Reuters news agency by phone that "these people have surrounded the hotel with military and threatened my security people".

"They had a plan to surround us and take us into custody and I don't know if this is that phase of that particular operation."

The former army chief, in the final days of the campaign, said the government had plans to either steal the vote or arrest him should he win.

The government dismissed the allegation, saying Rajapaksa would win the race cleanly and had no need to cheat.

A senior military source and a senior presidential aide told Reuters that Fonseka had been put under watch to ensure he did not attempt to organise a coup with his own loyalists in the army he commanded just eight months ago.

"The government doesn't want him to take the first step towards a coup," the military officer said on condition of anonymity.

The general fell under suspicion of plotting a coup immediately after the war, which analysts say led Rajapaksa to promote him to a job with no control over troops.

Fonseka said the sidelining and accusations prompted him to retire from the military and enter the presidential race.

© Al Jazeera

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