Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, accused by critics of stifling dissent, looks set to consolidate his hold on power in parliamentary polls this week despite protests from Buddhist monks. Rajapakse called Thursday’s vote two months ahead of schedule after his thumping re-election in January and his Freedom Alliance party is in line for an easy majority in the 225-member national legislature, according to analysts.
Nearly 20,000 troops have been put on alert to reinforce police as polls have often been soured by violence in Sri Lanka. In the first death of the campaign, unknown gunmen shot a ruling party activist at the
weekend.
The opposition united behind a common candidate, former army chief Sarath Fonseka, for the presidential poll, but it has now split — giving Rajapakse’s party a clearer run.
“The government has no issue winning the election, but their challenge is to increase the majority,” said political commentator Victor Ivan, referring to the 126 seats currently held by the ruling party.
Fonseka is now under detention and faces another hearing in an ongoing court martial process on Tuesday that could see him jailed for allegedly engaging in politics while in uniform and making illegal army
procurements.
Influential Buddhist monks vowed on Monday to launch a wave of anti-government protests after police arrested a dozen monks who staged a protest demanding Fonseka’s release.
The National Bhikku (monks’) Front (NBF) accused Rajapakse’s government of committing an “unforgivable sin” when police beat and arrested 12 monks staging a fast outside the main railway station in Colombo.
“The fast was to press for the release of General Sarath Fonseka,” NBF head Dambara Amila told reporters in Colombo. “The government will have to pay for this.”
The opposition alliance, which is backed by the monks, has urged Fonseka’s release.
He was arrested by the military 12 days after losing to Rajapakse, but each party in the alliance is fielding separate candidates who will compete against each other.
Fonseka is running in the election from jail as head of the Democratic National Alliance, but his detention has not been the lightning rod for dissent that some hoped.
Campaigning for the parliamentary elections ended
yesterday.
“General Fonseka emerged as a symbol of opposition to Rajapakse, but he is not strictly a politician,” said Nimalka Fernando, of the Democratic People’s Movement, a political pressure group.
“If he does badly at this election, he will have a career in politics fighting the president, but it won’t be an influential one,” Fernando said.
Rajapakse and Fonseka were close allies in the defeat of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger separatists last year which ended their 37-year violent struggle for a homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east of the island nation.
At the January presidential poll, Rajapakse won the votes of most of the Sinhalese ethnic group, to which he belongs, but lost out in all Tamil areas to
Fonseka.
Observers say the new government must address Tamils’ desire for greater autonomy which fuelled the Tigers’ separatist struggle. The armed uprising was snuffed out in May after the loss of up to 100,000 lives over more than three decades.
Rajapakse and family members, who hold key positions in government, stand accused by critics at home and rights groups abroad of clamping down on media freedoms and dissidents.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission has accused Sri Lanka’s government of engaging in “alarming attempts to repress the avenues of the political participation of the opposition and the entire
population.”
The Tamil National Alliance, which was a puppet of the Tamil Tigers before they were annihilated last year, has warned it could resort to a civil disobedience campaign to press for greater political |
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