Sri Lanka: Sri Lankans voted in a closely fought presidential poll on Thursday seen as a referendum on how to rescue the country's faltering peace process and Tsunami-hit economy, but a boycott by Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) marred the vote.
Heavily armed police carrying AK-47s guarded voting stations across the country in a two-horse race between hawkish left-wing Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and right-wing opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, seen as far more dovish toward the rebels.
But while long voting queues formed in the Capital Colombo, a barricade of burning tyres and palm fronds belched thick black smoke by the entrance to rebel-held territory in the island's east as Tigers enforced a boycott.
"I am voting for Mahinda because he will not divide our nation and will protect its sovereignty," said 35-year-old auto rickshaw driver Jayantha Arunasiri at a polling station on the outskirts of Colombo.
But 40-year-old executive Nihal Perera said he had cast his ballot for Wickremesinghe. "I am voting for Ranil for peace and economic development. This government has ruined the country."
The streets of Jaffna peninsular, hemmed in by the LTTE de facto state in the northeast, were deserted and residents said rebel fronts had warned them to stay at home.
Colombo's stock exchange fell over 2.0 per cent as traders fretted the boycott could hurt the chances of the more moderate Wickremesinghe, who many ethnic Tamils had been expected to vote for.
Sporadic violence
Sporadic grenade explosions sounded overnight in Batticaloa, in what police said was probably feuding by rebel factions.
But officials said the run-up was the calmest in years, with just one murder of a party polling agent directly linked to the poll. Some 95,000 police and security officials were on duty.
Rajapakse vows to take a tough line with the rebels, rejecting their demand for an ethnic homeland and planning to tighten a 2002 truce that halted two-decades of civil war.
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Former Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, who brokered the ceasefire, is seen as more conciliatory toward minority Tamils and a better administrator.
Both candidates have pledged a raft of subsidies on goods, from milk powder to fertilizer for the rural poor and farmers, in a $20 billion economy whose biggest currency earners include foreign remittances, garment and tea exports and tourism.
Sri Lanka's hopes of jump-starting an economy long hamstrung by low foreign investment and limited infrastructure, particularly in rebel-held areas and along the island's tsunami-battered coastline, hinge on a lasting peace deal.
The government has set up polling stations on the fringes of rebel-held territory and sent buses across the frontline to pick-up voters. But rebels turned vehicles back on Thursday.
With no opinion polls, the race is seen as too close to call. The island's election commissioner is expected to announce the first results from an electorate of 13.3 million early on Friday.
Wickremesinghe is generally regarded as having a better chance of saving it, but it will not be easy to tempt the rebels back to the negotiating table.
Rajapakse, who has allied himself with hardline Marxists and nationalists from the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority, has wide grassroots support among rural voters.
But his government has come under fire for the slow pace of reconstruction after December's tsunami despite a deluge of $3 billion in international aid.
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