rediff.com: Sri Lanka: Results suspended, but UNP set to win

After seven years in the wilderness, Sri Lanka's leading opposition party surged towards a position of power, inflicting defeat on President Chandrika Kumaratunga's People's Alliance in most electoral districts, but it is not yet clear if it will take absolute control of Parliament.

The right-wing United National Party obtained 47.47 percent of the votes after 80 percent of the ballots cast in Wednesday's violence-hit election had been counted, winning 10 out of the 11 districts for which final results were available on Thursday evening.

The announcement of the results was suspended on Thursday, pending a decision on districts affected by alleged malpractices, but the trends indicate that a UNP-led government may assume office soon.

The UNP is likely to end up close to an absolute majority after its vote percentage is translated into seats in the 225-member legislature, while the PA, accounting for 39.03 percent of the 8.35 million votes counted, could finish more than 20 seats behind.

The counting has been completed for 120 electorates out of 160 in the island. The UNP polled more votes than others in 89 of these electorates. In terms of seats, the UNP has won 43 from 11 districts, while the PA won 31. The Janatha Vimukti Peramuna has bagged five seats. The Tamil National Alliance, a front of four Tamil parties, has won three out of the five seats in the eastern Batticaloa district, while the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the People's Alliance won a seat each.

The Tamil people in the north and east voted overwhelmingly for the pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Tamil Nationalist Alliance, which is expected to complete a near sweep of the northern Jaffna peninsula and Vanni mainland, besides the eastern district of Batticaloa.

The Tamil alliance is seen as a party that may extend crucial support to the UNP. If the latter falls short of a majority, its seats may come in handy as a bargaining tool.

Kumaratunga asked her supporters to accept victory and defeat with equanimity. Her appeal may indicate a sober approach towards the UNP, in contrast to her pre-election utterances that had raised fears that she may use her substantial presidential powers to deadlock governance under a UNP regime.

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has yet another opportunity to become Sri Lanka's Prime Minister, a post he held in 1993-94 in an erstwhile UNP government.

The party's mandate is widely seen as an expression of popular resentment over spiralling cost of living, an unending war and a mood of pervasive cynicism in the conflict-hit island nation.

A senior minister and PA candidate Sarath Amunugama said the rising cost of living and the moving away of minority votes toward the UNP could have proved costly to the party.

UNP spokesman Karunasena Kodituwakku called the party's victory "a turning point for economic progress and national unity". The people had proved their maturity by rejecting state media propaganda that his party had a secret pact with the LTTE, he said.

The UNP's strategy of forming a broad front, including the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the Ceylon Workers' Congress, seemed to have paid dividends, as their votes significantly bolstered its tally.

Moreover, the UNP's stature among the Tamil minority population as a party that is more willing and eager than the PA to open direct negotiations with the LTTE, probably after announcing a ceasefire and de-proscribing the militant group, may also have helped it.

The Marxist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna has established itself as the third strongest party in southern Sri Lanka and has gathered enough votes to enable it to improve on the 10 seats it got in the election last year.

The counting process was relatively peaceful on Thursday, in contrast to the pre-election violence that consumed 47 lives and the killing of a dozen others during or after the polling process on Wednesday.


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