Sri Lankans trickled to the polls yesterday in the turbulent eastern city of Batticaloa to vote in the first municipal elections since government forces took control of the east last year from ethnic Tamil rebels.
Though thousands of police and soldiers patrolled the streets, many residents only warily came to polling stations in the city, which has been plagued by chaos and violence blamed on armed militia groups vying for power in the wake of the rebel defeat.
A high turnout was crucial to the government, which held the polls despite boycotts by some political parties and protests from human rights groups that said the level of violence and intimidation made it impossible to hold a fair vote.
Hoping to prevent violence, the government flooded the area with police. Soldiers armed with assault rifles stood guard every few meters, checking vehicles on the near empty road leading into town, while other troops patrolled in armored personnel carriers.
Few people turned out to vote when polling started at 7am.
Turnout improved by mid morning, and the elections appeared to be free of violent incidents.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa billed the vote as a crucial step toward democracy for the region after the military defeated the Tamil Tigers last July after 13 years of rebel rule.
Violence, much of it blamed on armed groups, has plagued the area since then. Many of the militias are running in the election.
One mayoral candidate, Edwin Krishnanandaraja, known better by his rebel nom de guerre Pradeep Master, said the militia had just entered the "democratic stream" and hoped to disarm "gradually."
He dismissed allegations that his rebel group forcibly recruited children, extorted money from businessmen and was behind rampant violence and killings. The group has also been accused of forcing community leaders to run on its ticket.
Opposition parties and rights groups and said the polls were irredeemably tainted by violence.
Meanwhile, a powerful bomb ripped through a commercial area of Sri Lanka's capital on Monday, killing one man and wounding six others, police said.
The improvised explosive device was hidden in a flower bed on the central median of the Colombo-Galle highway, military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said.
"One person was killed and six others were wounded and taken to hospital," a police officer said, adding that investigations showed the man who was blown to pieces had tried to touch the device.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS