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Sri Lanka election: shock as president Mahinda Rajapaksa concedes defeat Sri Lanka election: shock as president Mahinda Rajapaksa concedes defeat
(about 1 hour later)
Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has conceded what is a shock defeat in the country’s presidential election. Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has conceded defeat in an election seen as the most significant poll for decades in the island nation.
Official sources said results announced so far had given the opposition presidential candidate, Maithripala Sirisena, an unassailable lead. The defeat ends a decade of rule that critics said had become increasingly authoritarian and marred by nepotism and corruption.
The presidential press secretary, Vijayananda Herath, told AFP: “The president met with former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe this morning. The president concedes defeat and will ensure a smooth transition of power bowing to the wishes of the people.” As the results came in overnight, a senior government official and close ally of Rajapaksa said: “We don’t have any good news. It is all bad news.”
There was no immediate comment from Sirisena who was still at his home in Polonnaruwa, 215 kilometres (134 miles) east of the capital Colombo. “I think people need a change and this is democracy.”
An opposition parliamentarian, Harsha de Silva, said transitional arrangements were being discussed with Rajapaksa and that Wickremesinghe had “guaranteed him and his family security”. The new president will be Maithripala Sirisena, a former loyalist and minister in Rajapaksa’s government who made a surprise bid to oust the region’s longest-serving leader.
One senior government official and close ally of Rajapaksa told Reuters: “We don’t have any good news. It is all bad news. I think people need a change and this is democracy.” Celebratory firecrackers could be heard exploding in the capital, Colombo, after the president’s office said Rajapaksa had met a leader of the opposition to accept the victory of his challenger. There was no sign of protests or a major mobilisation of security forces, as some had feared.
The Elections Commission said the election was peaceful. Some voters were prevented from casting ballots in the Tamil-dominated north, according to the Center for Monitoring Election Violence. Sirisena announced his candidacy hours after Rajapaksa, 69, announced he would call the election two years early in November. The farmer-turned-politician Sirisena united a fractured opposition and told voters he would root out corruption and undo unpopular constitutional reforms which have concentrated powers on the presidency.
Rajapaksa was already the longest-serving ruler in the region and was seeking a third term that would allow him to consolidate what critics said was an increasingly authoritarian and dynastic rule. Observers said the unexpected challenge from the former health minister destabilised the incumbents.
The 69-year-old had decided to call early elections in the hope of an easy victory over a fragmented opposition. “It definitely threw them. They’ve not been on their game,” said Alan Keenan, of the International Crisis Group.
Until just a few weeks ago, he was widely expected to easily win. But that changed suddenly in November when Sirisena split from him, and gathered the support of other defecting lawmakers and many of the country’s ethnic minorities, making the election a fierce political battle. However Sirisena, from the Sinhala majority, has not signalled any departure from Rajapaksa’s hard line on reconciliation with the country’s Tamil minority.
Rajapaksa was still thought to be tough to beat because he controlled the state media, has immense financial resources and is still popular among the Sinhala majority, some of whom see him as a saviour for destroying Tamil Tiger rebels and ending a decades-long civil war in 2009. The Department of Elections said that of 3.26m votes counted so far, Sirisena had taken 51.3% and Rajapaksa was trailing on 46.9%. Other candidates accounted for the rest of the votes cast by an electorate of about 15 million people. Counting should be complete by noon local time on Friday.
But polling was notably strong Thursday in Tamil-dominated areas, where voting had been poor in previous elections. Many Tamils have felt abandoned since the war’s end, when Rajapaksa largely ignored Tamil demands to heal the wounds of the fighting and years of ethnic divisions. They were thought to have voted heavily for Sirisena. The campaign was marred by more than 400 incidents of violence, according to monitors, and allegations of fraud and intimidation. However the worst predictions of disruption of polls on Thursday were not fulfilled and the turnout was high.
Both Sirisena and Rajapaksa are ethnic Sinhalese, who make up about three-quarters of the country. A presidential coordinator, Wijayananda Herath, said Rajapaksa met Ranil Wickremesinghe – the veteran politician who will be prime minister under the new president – to concede defeat and asked him to “facilitate a smooth transition”.
Sirisena, 63, is expected to be sworn in later on Friday.
Rajapaksa won handsomely in the last election in 2010, surfing a wave of popularity after overseeing a final bloody victory over ethnic Tamil separatists and ending a crippling 26-year civil war. He was seeking an unprecedented third term, having pushed through a constitutional amendment.
The decision to seek early polls may have been more an acknowledgement of growing unpopularity than a statement of strength, however. The benefits of economic growth have failed to reach the poor, especially in rural areas.
Corruption and apparent nepotism – several family members hold senior office – also played a role. An adamant refusal to move on reconciliation with the Tamil minority and growing sectarian violence denied him votes among other constituencies.
Votes from the ethnic Tamil-dominated former war zone in the north of the country and Muslim-dominated areas appear to have played a key role in Sirisena’s victory.
According to one report, in the Tamil stronghold of Kilinochchi, Sirisena got nearly three-quarters of votes cast.
But Sirisena will have to lead a potentially fractious coalition of ethnic, religious, Marxist and centre-right parties and any prolonged political instability will open the way for a Rajapaksa comeback.
There are still fears of trouble. “Our culture is such that there is always a chance of post-election violence,” said Paikiasothy Savaranamuttu, of the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives, before the vote.