Sri Lanka News, update throughout the day....
EARLY RESULTS SHOW DEFINITE DEFEAT FOR PRIME MINISTER RANIL WICKREMESINGHE’S UNITED NATIONAL PARTY AND ALLIES
(Photo by:Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi/REUTERS )
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
April 03, 03:00 PM: Early results so far released by Sri Lanka’s Commissioner of Elections indicate that more than 75 percent of the 12 million registered voters of the island republic had given a humiliating defeat to the country’s ruling Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his United National Front coalition and granted an early lead over the ruling party to the newly formed alliance of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
If a government is formed by the new coalition led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga it would be a fresh start for the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna , that had been brutally crushed twice in its short history since 1971 to actually hold office and govern for the first time.
According to the elections results broadcast by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation , it was now certain, the United National Freedom Alliance (UNFA), the coalition led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga would bag at least 14 of the 22 electoral districts but the number of seats it would win were uncertain since the final counting of all votes were not yet over.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe came to power more than two years ago, after he reached a secret pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , which he denied at the 2001 elections.
The Janatha Vmukthi Peramuna was the first to reveal about the pact and although Ranil Wickremesinghe denied it the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam eventually accepted there was a pact .During that elections LTTE Supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran openly appealed to all Tamil voters to vote for him but during the most recent elections the LTTE was divided among two factions and was too busy dealing with the enemy within to help Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Two years of relentless campaign by nationalist forces and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna against the secret pact was able to consolidate power among the majority Sinhalese against the Ranil Wickremesinghe government, .
The victory for the UPFA is also considered a personal political victory for the President’s brother Anura Bandaranaike, who relentlessly campaigned for the new coalition inside his party, the SLFP against all odds.
Political sources in Colombo said the ruling United National Front would win only five electoral districts at this elections and the party’s pro-Western leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would be under tremendous pressure to hand over the reins of the party to a new leader with a more nationalist outlook.
Meanwhile , Ranil Wickremesinghe’s political allies , the Tamil National Alliance , a proxy party for the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were accused of rigging the elections in the North and the East. The Center for Election Violence, private monitors allowed by the Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissananayaka .to monitor elections said in a report that they were disturbed by reports that the Tamil National Alliance supported by the LTTE had made it virtually impossible for other Tamil parties and groups to carry on with a campaign. V. Ananda Sangaree, President of the Tamil United Liberation Front who led a team of independent candidates in the Jaffna electoral district and Mr. Douglas Devananda leader of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) have appealed to the Election Commissioner for the cancellation of the poll and hold fresh elections again for the affected areas under the new powers granted to him. But the Commissioner of Elections did not seem to heed that and announced the results, declaring the accused party as winners.
Sri Lanka News, update throughout the day....