70% voter turnout in Sri Lanka’s presidential election

There was 70% voter turnout when polling for the presidential election in Sri Lanka ended on January 26, 2010, amidst heavy security to thwart any possible violence.

Sri Lanka’s presidential election this time was a virtual confrontation between two candidates – President Mahinda Rajapaksa, 64, of the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), and General Sarath Fonseka, 59, Rajapaksa’s former army commander, who is supported by four leading Opposition parties. Both of them take credit for the ruthless vanquishing of the separatist Tamil rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009.

Apart from President Mahinda Rajapaksa and General Sarath Fonseka, 20 candidates are running for President, but they are unlikely to make any impact on the outcome of the polls.

This was the first national election held in Sri Lanka since the total defeat of the LTTE after the government and the separatist rebels fought a 26-year-long war.

President Rajapaksa had called an early election, 2 years before his 6-year term was to end, which is widely construed to be an attempt to cash in on his government’s military victory over the LTTE rebels.

The polling, which started at 7 a.m. in about 11,000 polling stations across the country, ended at 4 p.m.

There are 14 million registered voters.

Though sporadic incidents of violence and intimidation took place, they did not affect the polling in general.

Five explosions of a minor nature that occurred in northern Sri Lanka early in the morning resulted in lowering the voter turnout in the region to less than 20%. The explosions took place in the Jaffna Peninsula, which was one of the major battlefields in the Sri Lanka government’s long-drawn-out fight with the LTTE.

Police said no casualties were reported in Jaffna, which is located 396 kilometres north of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.

However, brisk polling was reported in the rest of the country, according to election officials.

According to provisional available soon after the polling ended, the average voter turnout across Sri Lanka was over 70%. The final figure, according to election officials, could reach 80% or even more once all figures are tabulated.