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Sri Lanka president-elect wants peace talks
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-19 00:44
Soon after unofficial results became public, opposition leader Ranil
Wickremesinghe's campaign demanded re-votes in key northern districts where many
Tamils did not vote, said party secretary N. K. Weeragoda. However, party
officials later said the request had been rejected.
Rajapakse received 50 percent of the vote, compared with 48 percent for
Wickremesinghe, election officials said.
"I will bring about an honorable peace to the country respecting all
communities," Rajapakse said after being declared the winner.
The Prime Minister's Office appealed to the Sri Lankan people "to behave
peacefully and celebrate the victory without harming opponents."
Balloting was smooth Thursday in western and southern parts of the island
nation, and overall turnout was 75 percent, election officials said.
But in the north and east — territory of the feared rebels — grenade attacks,
roadblocks and intimidation kept many Tamils from voting. Others heeded a
boycott called by pro-rebel groups, which complained that neither of the main
candidates would help them win a Tamil homeland in northeastern Sri Lanka.
The Tamils make up just under 20 percent of Sri Lanka's 19 million people but
were potential kingmakers in the tightly contested election.
Wickremesinghe's softer line on peace talks with the rebels won him wide
support among Tamils, a largely Hindu minority. He had signed a cease-fire with
the rebels in 2002 as prime minister and had promised to strike a peace deal by
granting Tamils a degree of autonomy.
Rajapakse's election as Sri Lanka's fifth president was "a setback for the
peace process as you have a very polarized society," Wickremesinghe told
reporters. "There will be a lot of question marks and uncertainty."
Officials said roadblocks and intimidation kept most of the 200,000 Tamils
living in rebel territory from voting, and that many of the more than 2 million
Tamils in government areas also stayed away from the polls.
Turnout was less than 1 percent in and around the northern Tamil city of
Jaffna — the lowest ever in any of the Indian Ocean country's 22 districts.
That clearly helped Rajapakse, who turned 60 Friday.
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