Lanka polls: Rajapakse takes big lead

Wednesday, January 27, 2010
COLOMBO: Incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa took a strong lead in counting on Wednesday in Sri Lanka's bitterly disputed presidential election, officials said, as armed troops surrounded the hotel of his main rival.

Election officials said Rajapaksa who is being challenged by his estranged former army chief Sarath Fonseka, had won 60 percent of the vote with about a fifth of the ballots counted.

The winner of the island's first election since last year's defeat of a three-decade insurgency by ethnic Tamil rebels was set to be announced around midday (0630 GMT).

Tensions were acute in the capital Colombo, where up to 80 armed soldiers ringed the deluxe hotel where Fonseka was staying with several other opposition leaders.

Tuesday's election was the first since Rajapaksa, 64, and Fonseka, 59, engineered the final defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who had been fighting for a Tamil homeland in the island's northeast since the 1970s.

Partial official results showed Rajapakse with 1.31 million votes against 862,644 for Fonseka. An estimated 9.85 million people voted in all.

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