Sri Lanka's main political parties were launching their campaigns yesterday for April's parliamentary elections amid reports of increased vote-related violence, police and monitors said.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga's party was set to inaugurate its campaign from the north-central town of Anuradhapura, 206km north of the capital Colombo, party officials said.
Her rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was launching his party's re-election drive from the central town of Kandy.
Police said the meetings were taking place amid fears of more violence after 40 people were admitted to hospitals in incidents on Tuesday when nominations for the April 2 election closed.
The private Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) said it was concerned with the "geographic spread" of the violence and said out of 29 incidents on Tuesday, eight were categorized as "major."
"The CMEV calls upon the two main parties to acknowledge their primary responsibility and take effective action to prevent a repetition of this pattern of electoral violence," the CMEV said.
At least 41 people were killed and another 700 wounded in the run-up to the December, 2001 parliamentary elections.
President Kumaratunga called the April 2 election nearly four years ahead of schedule after a feud with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe over his handling of the peace process with Tiger rebels.
The guerrillas who have been leading a violent campaign for a separate state called Eelam are not contesting, but have fielded proxy candidates through a moderate Tamil party.
The Tiger proxies are holding their first rally in the northern town of Vavuniya, 254km north of here, officials said.
There are 26 seats up for grabs in the embattled north-east where the minority Tamils are concentrated while the total number of seats in parliament is 225.
The April 2 election is the second ballot since a Norwegian-brokered truce between government troops and Tigers went into effect from Feb. 23, 2002.
With the island's majority Sinhalese community split equally between the parties of the president and her prime minister, Tamils with their block vote are expected to emerge king-makers.
RSS