Home

News

Politics

Issues

Focus

Editorial

Spotlight

Insight

Elections

Sports

Business

Review

Arts

Letters

Nutshell

Interviews

Fashion

Archives

• UPFA with 105 leads the way 

•  TNA - 22 and JHU secures at least 8 

•  UNF, CWC, UPF and SLMC total 90

•  Horse trading begins

•  JVP beats SLFPers to top spots

Verdict: A hung parliament

Friday's General Election to elect 225 representatives to Sri Lanka's 13th parliament resulted with the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) emerging as the single largest party. However, the UPFA failed to secure a formidable margin thus resulting in frantic deals being discussed behind doors in an attempt to secure a suitable majority against its main contender the United National Front (UNF).

Counting had not even concluded before intense negotiations and horse deals were underway to woo parties independent of the UPFA and the UNF into help form the new government.

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) having fielded 260 Buddhist monks at this election, on Saturday emerged as the deciding factor to assist in the formation of a new government.  General Secretary, JHU, Tilak Karunaratne said, his party would be willing to form an alliance with any one of the two single largest parties who agreed with the set of conditions already put forward by the monks.

Among 10 positions the party have stated its rejection for a federal solution to the ethnic crisis and maintain they do not accept the LTTE as being the sole representative of the Tamil people. The JHU also maintains peace talks must be held not just between the government and LTTE but must involve all political parties so that if one government has to take over from the other the process can be continued unhindered.

The JHU asserts it is willing to even back the UPFA, despite contrary positions that emerged between the monks and the JVP during the pre election campaign. The predominantly Sinhala Buddhist political organisation reiterates that despite its previous differences with the JVP, it would still be willing to support the Alliance if the UPFA accepts the party's policy decisions and conditions.

Having initially expected only two seats in parliament, the JHU made an impressive entry into the arena of parliament at the conclusion of the poll. By noon yesterday the JHU, had secured 6.73% of the votes having polled over 400,000 votes. At the time of going to press Tilak Karunaratne said he was expecting the number of seats to further increase after the elections commissioner called a re-poll on two polling centers at Kuliyapitiya in the Kurunegala District and Nawalapitiya in the Kandy District.

A spokesman from the Elections Department said that Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake was considering casting a re-poll at these two polling centers following serious allegations of voter rigging. Until such time the poll count is fully completed a caretaker government, he said, may have to function. The results of the re-poll if called would be known only by Tuesday, April 6.

The JHU early afternoon yesterday had secured one seat in Kalutara, three in Colombo, one in Gampaha and two seats on the national list bringing the total to seven.

The other single independent political party with an impressive total number of seats is the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) who secured 20 seats at district level and with its allocation on the national list would have a total of 22 seats in parliament.

Secretary General, Tamil United Liberation Front and Parliamentary Group Leader, TNA, R. Sambandan reiterated that the TNA was not looking to barter with whichever party formed the new government, but has stated its position very clearly that support would depend on any government formed to have the ability to deliver to the Tamil people.

Elaborating he said, the trials and tribulations brought on the Tamil people must come to an end. "The only way is through the establishment of a self-governing authority where Tamil people will have governing powers and where the people of the north and east are given the relief they deserve," he said.

Pessimistic, Sambandan, maintained, "we do not think any Sri Lankan government is sincerely committed to giving this to us," he asserted, adding, "there is not much to choose between the UNF and the UPFA and its different governments."

At the time this edition went to press no final results were out in relation to the poll and the situation with regard to who would form the new government continued to remain uncertain.

It is also learnt in the preference vote count, the JVP members had beaten the SLFP stalwarts to the top spots in most of the districts including Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Kandy, Matara, Anuradhapura and Moneragala securing nearly 35 seats in the UPFA's 104 seats.

The constitution provides that the President cannot dissolve parliament for another year even if the UNF succeeds in forming the new government and is subsequently defeated in parliament. The President in such a situation would have to call upon the party, which has the second highest number of members in parliament to form a government.

Polling conducted at 10,670 polling booths across the island on Friday concluded its results at 1,123 counting centers Island-wide.

In what was seen as a high voter turn out - an estimated 81%, 50% percent had cast their vote by noon on Friday, 2.

5,698 candidates contested this last election in a bid to be elected and included among 196 elected MPs. Another 29 gain entry on the national list bringing the total number of representatives in the House to 225.

150,000 election officers were deployed to administer the necessary functions at this last election while 75,000 police officers were placed on election duty and 1,830 buses used for the purpose of election work.

According to DIG for Elections, Gamini Navaratne there were 122 cases of election violence reported on Friday. He said this figure in comparison to the previous election in 2001 proved there was a marked reduction in polls related violence this time round.

The incidents have been largely classified where polling agents were chased off, stuffing of ballot boxes and obstructing of voters from exercising their franchise. Significantly, no murders or shooting incidents were reported to police on polling day.

Navaratne said Nuwara Eliya, Kandy and Kurunegala were identified as the places with the most number of violent incidents on the day of the poll.

Headlines