Ahead of Sri Lanka election, candidates court Tamil vote

Hotly contested presidential race threatens to raise tensions.

President Mahinda Rajapaksha at a presidential election rally

Colombo:  Sri Lankan voters are readying to cast their votes for the next president on Thursday while both main candidates have urged minority Tamils to back them in a hotly contested election.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa is seeking an unprecedented third term. He called the snap election two years ahead of schedule and his coalition party has faced several problems, including withdrawal of support from Buddhist and Muslim parties. That, in turn, has led to a significant amount of electioneering toward Christian and minority voters.

“President Mahinda Rajapaksa and opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena came for the blessings of the Catholic Church and priests urged equal rights and freedom to live in the country,” said Father Victor Soosay, Vicar General of Mannar.

Both candidates urged minority Tamils to back them in tomorrow’s vote.

In turn, said Father Soosay, the church was asking for an improvement in how the oppressed minority is treated.

“We urged both candidates to provide dignified life for Tamils… Tamils must be recognized as a nation, they are also people with equal rights in the country,” said the priest.

“We urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa to find justice for the disappeared people but it was not a satisfactory answer from him,” he said, referring to the thousands abducted during and after the country’s brutal 25-year civil war.

Tamil voters, who widely loathe the incumbent, account for around 13 percent of the 15 million voters; this year’s vote has placed them in a sensitive situation.

On Monday, a pro-government TV channel broadcast the Tamil politician Ananthi Sasistharan seemingly making an appeal for Tamil voters to boycott the vote. She quickly went public saying the footage was falsified to keep Tamils from the polls.

“I never asked for a boycott of the election,” she said.

The opposition politician said security threats have increased ahead of the election, and her home was attacked recently.

“My children missed being hit by a stone which went through the window inside the house,” she told ucanews.com.

Sasistharan said she was concerned by an increase in troop deployment in the Tamil-dominated north, which she said could lead to voter intimidation and abstention.

Sri Lanka's election commission said Wednesday it is investigating claims that troops are being deployed in the Tamil-dominated north before the presidential vote, which has already been marred by violence.

Chief election commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya said there had been complaints that security forces were deploying in the northern Vanni region, in contravention of election laws.

The Vanni is part of the former war zone where Tamil separatists fought the Sri Lankan military in a decades-long conflict that ended in 2009.

"I have already taken this up with the army commander, who says he has not ordered troops to deploy," Deshapriya told reporters on the eve of the bitterly contested election.

"I have been told that there had been 'stand-by orders' given to send the army to police stations and other vital institutions."

Police have said that 65,000 officers armed with an automatic assault rifles are being deployed around the country.

Source: AFP/UCAN