Voting will not be held again in two areas where there were widespread reports of fraud in parliamentary elections, Sri Lanka's election commissioner said yesterday, paving the way for the release of final results.
Early counting from Friday's voting, fought largely over the direction of peace talks with Tamil Tiger rebels, showed Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's political alliance holding a strong lead over her longtime rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
A Kumaratunga victory would almost certainly mean a shift in the direction of the talks, as the president, who survived a 1999 Tiger assassination attempt, has long distrusted the rebels' insistence that they want peace.
Election Commissioner Dayanada Dissanayake made his announcement after he met with leaders of the island's major political parties to discuss the reported voting irregularities.
"We had a lengthy discussion and my decision is that there is no need for re-polling," Dissanayake said.
It was not immediately clear when final results from the vote -- and the official announcement of which party will form the new government -- will be announced. But officials said the process to make those announcements would begin immediately.
Results released yesterday showed that with more than two-thirds of votes counted for the 225-seat Parliament, 61 seats had gone to the president's party, 45 to the prime minister's and six to a party led by Buddhist monks.
While the vote went far more smoothly than most in Sri Lanka, there were widespread reports in a handful of areas of voter intimidation and the stuffing of ballot boxes.
Politicians who attended the meeting yesterday said that neither of the main parties had asked that polling be held again in the two areas under discussion -- one in the country's central highlands and another in the east. Neither area is in the heartland of support for the Tiger rebels, where there were also reports of voting fraud.
Despite the slowed results, the president's United People's Freedom Alliance was confident that it would emerge the winner.
"The alliance has received the people's mandate to form the next government," Harim Peiris, Kumaratunga's top aide said Saturday. The president herself is elected separately, and will remain in office until 2005.
Even if the party fails to win the necessary majority of 113 seats in Parliament, Peiris insisted it would be able to forge a ruling coalition.
Part of her support, he said, was her approach to the peace talks.
Kumaratunga has dismissed the prime minister's negotiations, saying he has made far too many concessions to the Tigers, a ruthless, secretive group that fought for nearly two decades for an independent homeland for the minority ethnic Tamils. Most Sri Lankans are Sinhalese.
However, the Tigers have said they would be willing to negotiate with whichever party wins the elections.
Kumaratunga insists she wants peace talks, but she refuses to give the rebels the degree of autonomy they demand.
A fragile ceasefire has held for two years, but is already complicated by stalled talks, the corrosive rivalry between the president and prime minister and a split in rebel ranks.
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