This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/world/asia/sri-lanka-election-president-mahinda-rajapaksa.html

The article has changed 9 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Sri Lankans Vote on Whether to Keep Leader Who Crushed Insurgency Sri Lankans Vote on Whether to Keep Leader Who Crushed Insurgency
(about 7 hours later)
NEW DELHI — Voters in Sri Lanka turned out in unusually high numbers on Thursday to vote in a presidential election that will decide the fate of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a larger-than-life figure who during nearly a decade in office has built close ties with China, begun a campaign of “megadevelopment” and sharply centralized power in one of Asia’s oldest democracies. NEW DELHI — Voters in Sri Lanka turned out in unusually high numbers on Thursday for a presidential election that will decide the fate of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a larger-than-life figure who during nearly a decade in office has built close ties with China, begun a campaign of “megadevelopment” and sharply centralized power in one of Asia’s oldest democracies.
Five years ago, riding a wave of popularity after crushing the long-running Tamil insurgency in the north, Mr. Rajapaksa embraced a far grander vision for his governance of the island nation. Supporters took to calling him a modern-day incarnation of the ancient King Dutugemunu, who defeated Tamil invaders and ushered in a flourishing period of peace. Early estimates from election officials suggested that turnout in many parts of the country was around 70 percent or higher. Voters from minority groups in Sri Lanka’s north and east, former conflict zones where the president is not popular, also took part in large numbers.
After declaring victory over the Tamil insurgency, Mr. Rajapaksa, 69, began laying the groundwork to secure power for a longer period, amending the Constitution to remove a two-term limit for presidents and removing a resistant chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was buoyed by a steady postwar economic expansion that is the envy of Sri Lanka’s South Asian neighbors and by billions of dollars in Chinese loans for modern ports and highways. The contest became surprisingly close in November, when a longtime loyalist from Mr. Rajapaksa’s own party, Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena, suddenly defected and declared that he would run against him. Mr. Sirisena was followed by other defectors who have focused their campaigns on Mr. Rajapaksa’s vulnerabilities — especially complaints that his family members, who occupy dozens of government posts, have enriched themselves at the cost of ordinary citizens.
But his decision to call for the elections that were held on Thursday, nearly two years before the end of his second six-year term, has proved a bigger gamble than he anticipated. A longtime loyalist from his own party, Maithripala Sirisena, a former health minister, suddenly defected and declared himself the opposition candidate, lashing out at the president for allowing his family members to dominate the upper levels of government. At nightfall, however, ballot counting had just begun and it was impossible to say which candidate would prevail.
The race is being watched closely by the governments of China, India and the United States. China has underwritten Mr. Rajapaksa’s trademark achievements, and in September, to the alarm of Indian diplomats, a Chinese military submarine docked in the commercial harbor of Colombo, the capital. Mr. Sirisena has suggested that, if elected, he will steer Sri Lanka’s foreign policy along a different course. An additional contingent of police officers is to be deployed in Colombo, the capital, around Mr. Rajapaksa’s residence, known as Temple Trees, as part of a “special security arrangement” for the city, said Ajith Rohana, senior superintendent of the police in Colombo.
“Sirisena’s manifesto is very, very clear on this — ending reliance on one family and one country,” said Sasha Riser-Kositsky, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy based in New York. “They don’t name the family or the country, but it’s very obvious. They are very suspicious of becoming overreliant on China.” Mohan Samaranayake, a spokesman for Mr. Rajapaksa, said he believed that the president would win but that the margin would be smaller than it was in the last election, which he won with 58 percent of the vote.
After casting his vote in the city of Hambantota on Thursday morning, Mr. Rajapaksa told reporters that he was confident he would be re-elected. A tireless and charismatic campaigner, Mr. Rajapaksa won around 58 percent of the vote in the last election, a year after the end of the civil war. “People believe this is a crucial juncture in the history of Sri Lanka,” he said. “This will decide Sri Lanka’s future — its stability, its prospects for economic progress, reconciliation. All will be decided in this election.”
“We will have a resounding victory,” he said. “That is very clear.” But Eran Wickramaratne, an opposition member of Parliament and a key opposition campaign strategist, said that over the last several days, people in Mr. Rajapaksa’s administration had had conversations with their opponents about preparing for a peaceful transition of power.
During the waning days of the campaign, Mr. Rajapaksa promised changes if he won a third term, among them a revamping of the Constitution and an internal investigation into reported human rights violations by Sri Lankan troops during the civil war. “President Rajapaska is a very seasoned and mature politician; he has seen many transitions previously where he has gone into government or gone out of government,” he said. “They are dealing with very seasoned politicians on both sides. I think this can be handled in a mature way.”
He also warned voters of the untested quality of the opposition coalition, which has expanded to include factions from highly disparate interest groups. There is, indeed, little history of unrest around elections in Sri Lanka. But Mr. Rajapaksa has much at stake if he is defeated: His prospects are linked to those of his family members, many of whom occupy top government posts and have been accused of corruption by opposition campaigners.
The president has spent years systematically laying the groundwork to extend his rule, changing the Constitution to eliminate term limits and removing a resistant chief justice of the Supreme Court.
“He’s not going to go gently into the night,” said C. Raja Mohan, a prominent Indian political analyst. “He has been such a towering figure. I don’t know how this is going to play out.”
After he declared victory over the long insurgency by the minority Tamil ethnic group in the north in 2009, Mr. Rajapaksa embraced a far grander vision for his governance of the island nation, buoyed by a robust economic expansion and billions of dollars in Chinese loans for modern ports and highways. Supporters took to calling him a modern incarnation of Dutugemunu, a Sinhalese king who defeated Tamil invaders over 2,000 years ago and ushered in a flourishing period of peace.
As they left polling places on Thursday morning, voters said they were balancing Mr. Rajapaksa’s successes against grievances that have built up during his second term. Despite Sri Lanka’s high growth rates, there are widespread complaints about the rising cost of living, driven by the cost of fuel and other imports.
“The defeat of terrorism had to be achieved, and the whole country was deeply grateful to President Rajapaksa,” Mohan Perera, 62, a scientist from the dominant Sinhalese ethnic group, said after voting in a well-off central district of Colombo. “If they had managed the economy better after the war, I think he would have been unshakable. But much of the good will he got after the war has been squandered.”
Some who said they had voted for the president expressed fear that a change of government would knock Sri Lanka off its trajectory of economic growth. Piyaratne Jayasena, 62, a retired government banker from the working-class Colombo suburb of Maharagama, said Mr. Rajapaksa served as the guarantor of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, alluding to Western pressure over reports of human rights violations by the army during the civil war.
“In this election we have thought first about the country,” he said. “We must first of all have a country left. We have to know it is secure from foreign interference.”
It remains uncertain what policy changes would follow if the opposition came to power, since those who rallied around Mr. Sirisena — Buddhist nationalists, Marxists and center-right politicians, among others — are united by little but their alienation from the president, said Sasha Riser-Kositsky, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy based in New York. Mr. Sirisena has promised to amend the Constitution and return Sri Lanka to a full parliamentary system. If that happens, Mr. Riser-Kositsky said, “there is every reason to believe they will go back to the kind of bickering we’ve seen for the last couple of decades.”
Still, that prospect has proved far less important in this election than the accumulation of anger toward Mr. Rajapaksa and his family.
“What it turns out to be is a referendum on Rajapaksa,” Mr. Riser-Kositksy said. “Really, what the voters care about is Rajapaksa, yes or no.”
During the waning days of the campaign, Mr. Rajapaksa promised changes if he won a third term, among them a revamping of the Constitution and an internal investigation into reported human rights violations by Sri Lankan troops during the civil war. He also warned voters that Mr. Sirisena and his coalition were untested.
“The devil you know is better than the unknown angel,” he told an audience in the northern city of Jaffna. “I am the known devil, so please vote for me.”“The devil you know is better than the unknown angel,” he told an audience in the northern city of Jaffna. “I am the known devil, so please vote for me.”
As they left polling places on Thursday morning, voters in Colombo said they were balancing Mr. Rajapaksa’s clear successes against grievances that have built since 2010, when he won his second term.
“The defeat of terrorism had to be achieved, and the whole country was deeply grateful to President Rajapaksa,” said Dr. Mohan Perera, 62, a scientist from the Sinhalese ethnic group, after voting in a well-off central district of Colombo. “If they had managed the economy better after the war, I think he would have been unshakable. But much of the good will he got after the war has been squandered.”
Others said they feared that a change of government would knock Sri Lanka off the growth trajectory Mr. Rajapaksa had set. One man, who voted in the working-class Colombo suburb of Maharagama, worried about the country’s security if the opposition should come to power, alluding to Western pressure over the reports of human rights violations in the civil war.
“In this election we have thought first about the country,” said Piyaratne Jayasena, 62, a retired government banker. “We must first of all have a country left. We have to know it is secure from foreign interference.”
Despite Sri Lanka’s high growth rates, many people complain about the rising cost of living, driven by the cost of fuel and other imported goods. During the euphoric period that followed the war, many Sri Lankans increased their consumption in anticipation of a rise in income that did not come, said Nishan de Mel, an economist based in Colombo.
“The other side to the optimistic growth story is that jobs are not increasing very much,” said Mr. de Mel, who heads Verité Research, an independent research organization. “There is a sense of not really reaping the benefits of postwar economic growth.”
Because Mr. Rajapaksa’s support is concentrated in one part of the electorate — he remains popular among ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists, who make up 70 percent of the country’s population, but not among ethnic minority groups in the former conflict zones — the election’s outcome may hinge on turnout.
In the days before the election, observer groups warned that violence or a heavy military presence could be used to discourage turnout in important districts.
Turnout was reported to be strong on Thursday morning, with around 40 percent of registered voters showing up by 11 a.m., four hours after polls opened, according to Bharrat Jagdeo, a former president of Guyana who is heading the Commonwealth Observer Group. He said polling booths “are operating in an objective way.”
“We see a fairly decent on-the-ground translation of what you can call fair polls,” Mr. Jagdeo said. “So far there is no presence of the military anywhere in the country, and it has been peaceful.”
A hand grenade exploded about half a mile from a polling station in Jaffna, the Tamil-dominated northern city, but no one was wounded, said Ravi Waidyalankara, a senior police officer in Jaffna.
Monitors reported that Muslim voters displaced from their homes and living in temporary camps in the northern district of Mannar were unable to go to the polls because they had no transportation.