Presidential and parliamentary polls before April

Sri Lanka will hold both presidential and parliamentary elections before April 2010, state radio has announced.

 

The holding of the presidential poll nearly two years ahead of schedule reflects the government's popularity, reported the BBC.

 

The presidential poll, which was due by November 2011, will now be held before April 2010, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation said.

 

It did not give an exact date.

 

A government minister was also quoted as saying that parliamentary elections, which were due shortly after the legislature ends its term on April 2, would also be brought forward and held with the presidential poll.

 

The dates will be announced during a meeting of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party on November 15, reported the state-run Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, citing Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena.

 

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa will seek a second term, having declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May.

 

The move comes three days after the coalition of Rajapaksa scored its eighth clear victory in provincial polls.

 

Earlier, government sources had told Reuters the president could call early polls by January, hoping to lock in a second six-year term with his popularity peaking after his government defeated the Tamil Tigers in May.

 

Those sources had said a parliamentary election would follow in March. The reports were then unclear whether Rajapaksa would call both elections together, a possibility that has also been raised.

 

Rajapaksa, who is hugely popular among the Sinhalese majority, is likely to score a clear victory, reported the BBC.

 

The opposition is weak and the president is hoping for a two-thirds majority which would enable him to change the constitution, possibly making provision for more than two successive presidential terms, the BBC report said.

 

Rajapaksa has already said that he will wait until after the vote to introduce political reforms aimed, for instance, at addressing Tamil grievances.

 

But critics said that while ministers and the President regularly speak of the need for reconciliation, they are vague about concrete plans for reconciliation and about the nuts and bolts of reforms - for instance, the powers that might be held by Tamil-majority areas.

 

Officials from the president's United People's Freedom Alliance said they were keen to call an election to take advantage of support from the majority Sinhalese after victory against the Tamil Tigers.

 

Rajapaksa has resisted calls for war-crimes investigations into his military policy and, with support from China and Russia, managed to stave off a United Nations Security Council debate on the issue.

 

The UN has said that up to 7,000 civilians may have perished in the first few months of this year when security forces escalated their offensive against the remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Other reports placed the number killed at 20,000 civilians.

 

The president's party secured 68 percent of the vote at the recent Southern provincial council elections, slightly lower than expected.

 

"The party is quite comfortable with the 68 percent support, but it is better to have an early election to renew our mandate," a senior ruling party official said, declining to be named.

 

He said the president has been meeting with local party workers this week to map out electoral strategy.

 

Dayan Jayatilleka, recently sacked as Sri Lanka's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, writes in a new article that "there is no informed discussion about the nature of the post-war order".

 

Analysts have said Rajapaksa's popularity could fade if anticipated economic benefits from peace fail to materialise. There is already public grumbling over the high cost of living, reports say.

 

According to the constitution, the earliest Rajapaksa can call a presidential poll is when he completes his fourth year at the helm in November.

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