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[Mathan]

President's party leading in Sri Lankan elections

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - President Chandrika Kumaratunga's political alliance was leading in early returns Saturday in parliamentary elections, which saw Sri Lankans turn out strongly, hoping to end the island nation's 20-year civil war.

However, the votes counted so far were postal ballots used by the armed forces and government officials stationed away from their voting districts - cast before Friday's elections.

They generally do not reflect a definite trend, and final results were expected Sunday.

The Election Commission said of 608,458 postal ballots, the president's United People's Freedom Alliance secured 50.6 percent against 30.5 percent for Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Front.

A political party led by Buddhist monks tallied 7.5 percent while a pro-Tamil rebels party had 2.3 percent of the postal ballots.

The election, widely seen as a showdown between the approaches of the president and prime minister on peace negotiations, is expected to result in a divided 225-seat Parliament where neither main party holds a clear majority.

That could complicate a fragile cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers rebels that has held for two years, but is already complicated by stalled peace talks, a bitter rivalry between the president and prime minister and a split in the rebel ranks.

Despite numerous reports of election rigging, monitors said early indications were that Friday's vote had gone far more smoothly than most Sri Lankan elections, which are often plagued by widespread fraud and violence.

Overall turnout was about 75 percent of the country's 12.8 million registered voters, officials said.

Officials counted 250 incidents of election fraud on Friday.

At least some of the fraud - mostly voter intimidation and multiple voting - appeared to have been committed by the Tigers on behalf of their proxy party, the TNA.

In the northern Jaffna peninsula, the Tigers stopped voters who don't back the alliance from casting ballots, said Douglas Devananda of the Eelam People's Democratic Party, which supports the president.

That report could not be immediately confirmed, and the rebels could not be reached for comment.

More than 10,000 soldiers and Sri Lanka's entire 64,000-person police force were deployed for the elections, called more than three years ahead of schedule by the president.

The two leaders have waged a public power struggle over the direction of the peace talks, with the president - who believes the prime minister has conceded too much to the rebels - seizing control of three important ministries late last year and then calling early elections.

Opinion polls indicated that neither of their parties was likely to win a parliamentary majority.

That would force them to turn to smaller parties, ranging from the pro-Tiger TNA to one led by Buddhist monks, to forge a coalition or get legislation passed.

That could give unprecedented political power to the Tigers, who began fighting in 1983 to carve out a separate homeland for minority ethnic Tamils who have long faced discrimination by the Sinhalese majority.

Wickremesinghe signed the February 2002 cease-fire that stopped the fighting, which has killed nearly 65,000 people.

The Tigers now control nearly a third of northern and eastern Sri Lanka, where they have set up their own de facto government.

While they have dropped their long-standing demand to create a separate Tamil state, they now want Tamils to vote in one voice for wider autonomy.

But Tiger unity was badly shaken in March with the defection of a powerful Tiger leader, who took with him thousands of rebel fighters - and a handful of Alliance candidates.

Election officials said turnout was much lower in the largely Tamil north and east, where fighting, military blockades and Tiger boycotts had - until this year - had kept many Tamils from voting since the war began. - AP

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