Sri Lankans welcomed a Supreme Court decision ordering a presidential election by the year's end, effectively cutting short President Chandrika Kumaratunga's bid to extend her final term to the end of next year.
Sri Lanka's usually divided media and political parties yesterday hailed the court's decision and urged all sides to ensure fair and peaceful campaigning and balloting, after elections in recent years led to scores of deaths.
"Three Hearty Cheers," the Island newspaper said yesterday in an editorial praising the court's Friday decision.
"The judges have proved a big point: that no one can play with our Constitution, our democratic values," said Sumana Gamage, a homemaker in Colombo.
However, the election creates political uncertainty amid heightened tensions following the Aug. 12 assassination of the country's foreign minister -- allegedly by Tamil Tiger rebels -- and could hinder progress at planned talks on strengthening a shaky three-year-old ceasefire between the government and rebels.
On Friday, a five-judge Supreme Court panel said Kumaratunga's second term started on Dec. 22, 1999, meaning her six-year term ends this year. No election date was set, but polls must now be held before Nov. 21.
The decision is a win for the opposition, which disputed a claim by the president's ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party that Kumaratunga was entitled to remain in office until December next year because she had called a snap election a year before her first six-year term ended.
While hailing the court's decision, media pleaded for a peaceful election process.
"While it is relieving that an issue which proved so contentious has finally been resolved, it is incumbent on everyone concerned [to ensure that] electioneering should be carried out in a perfectly legal and peaceful manner," the state-run Daily News said in an editorial.
"As is well known, election-related violence in this country is proving increasingly costly and baneful -- in terms of lives lost, public property destroyed and the heavy loss of time which could be put to productive use," it said.
Several opposition parties, including the largest among them, the United National Party, also called for the elections to go smoothly.
"We have to now ensure there are free and fair elections," said Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is running for president.
The contest will likely pit opposition leader Wickremesinghe, who signed a ceasefire with the Tigers and started peace talks as prime minister in 2001 to last year, and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, whose People's Alliance has taken a harder line against the rebels -- a policy which has wide support among Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese majority.
The Tigers began fighting in 1983 for a separate homeland for minority ethnic Tamils, who are mainly Hindu, claiming discrimination by the largely Buddhist Sinhalese.
Analysts say the court decision could boost the island's peace prospects, with an election returning a president who has a new mandate to jump-start the Norway-brokered peace talks, which have been on hold since April 2003.
RSS