Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa won re-election yesterday in an historic post-war vote, but his chief rival called for the results to be annulled after soldiers surrounded him in a luxury hotel.
Official results showed Rajapaksa winning 57.8 percent of 10.4 million votes cast against 40.2 percent for former army commander General Sarath Fonseka, Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake said.
Fonseka and Rajapaksa as allies in war laid claim to the total defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam but became rivals in a close-fought, bloody campaign that culminated in a relatively peaceful election on Tuesday with heavy turnout.
“I announce that Mahinda Rajapaksa has won this presidential election,” commissioner Dissanayake told reporters, adding there was “no question” Rajapaksa had won more than the required 50 percent plus one vote to secure another six-year term.
Soon after, Fonseka said he had asked Dissanayake to nullify the vote, alleging vote-rigging.
“We ask him to declare null and void the results. We have asked him not to release the results as we are going to go to the courts,” the challenger told reporters. “Our strength is people and their franchise has been disregarded.”
Dissanayake said there were three areas in which vote counters had been assaulted by political operatives but declined to say which camp was responsible.
Hours before Rajapaksa was declared the winner, two people were killed and four wounded in a grenade attack on a Buddhist temple in the central town of Gampola, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. It was not immediately clear if the blast was poll-related, he said.
Tension was high yesterday as troops surrounded Fonseka in the Cinnamon Lakeside hotel in Colombo.
“These people have surrounded the hotel with military and threatened my security people,” Fonseka said by telephone.
Nanayakkara said there were no plans to arrest Fonseka but rather to capture around 400 army deserters with him who could pose a potential coup risk.
“They have booked 100 rooms. They are highly trained military people. We are suspicious about their gathering. General Fonseka has released nine deserters to the military police,” he said.
Fonseka later said the men were part of his security detail: “If Udaya Nanayakkara says there are 400 people in this hotel, he must be off his nuts. They want to remove all my security.”
Fonseka quit the army last November and entered the race with the backing of a motley coalition of political parties. He delivered an election day shock when he admitted that he had not registered to vote, prompting the government to cry foul over an electoral commission ruling that he was still qualified to stand for election.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)