01/27/2010
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New York Times
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president, was re-elected by a wide margin, election officials here said Wednesday, defeating the newly retired army general who had tried to lay claim to Mr. Rajapaksa’s biggest political victory, the defeat of the Tamil Tiger insurgency.
01/27/2010
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BBC
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has won Sri Lanka's first election since Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated after 25 years of civil war, state TV reports.
01/26/2010
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New York Times, The Lede blog
Millions of Sri Lankans cast votes on Tuesday in a presidential election, but the leading opposition candidate, a retired general who crushed a separatist movement last year, was not one of them.
01/26/2010
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BBC
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Long queues lead to polling booths in Sri Lanka as country votes for new president
* It's the first presidential election since the end of the civil war which lasted almost 26 years
* Frontrunners are incumbent President Mahnida Rajapaksa and retired Army General Sarath Fonseka
* Analysts say minority Tamil community may cast the deciding vote
01/26/2010
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ABC radio
BRENDAN TREMBATH: Millions of voters cast their ballots today in Sri Lanka's presidential election.
The President Mahinda Rajapaksa is calling for the poll to be peaceful, free and democratic.
But the campaign has been overshadowed by violence.
Opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka is confident he can win.
Electoral analysts say the result will be close.
South Asia correspondent Sally Sara reports from Colombo.
This is a radio story. Links to MP3s.
01/26/2010
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Daily Mirror (cached)
The government said this evening that legal action will be sought against General Sarath Fonseka challenging his presidential candidature as he was not a registered voter and not qualified to be elected president.
01/26/2010
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New York Times
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — As voters streamed to the polls on Tuesday in Sri Lanka’s first election since the defeat of the Tamil Tiger insurgency, the Tamil vote emerged as the bloc that could decide the winner.
01/25/2010
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New York Times
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — When President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced late last year that he would move the presidential election up by two years and seek a fresh mandate from Sri Lanka’s war-weary electorate, he seemed like a shoo-in.
Having vanquished the fearsome Tamil Tiger insurgency in May with a no-holds-barred assault on its last stronghold, Mr. Rajapaksa enjoyed widespread adulation. The opposition parties were fractured and in disarray. No one, it seemed, could match the president’s popularity, despite deep unease about what seemed to be the increasing concentration of power in the hands of his family and rising corruption.
But to near-universal surprise, an alphabet soup of political parties has rallied around the retired general who led Sri Lanka’s army to victory against the Tamil Tigers, Sarath Fonseka.
01/22/2010
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Associated Press
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Assailants attacked the house of an opposition activist in Sri Lanka's capital amid fears that election-related violence could mar the country's first poll since the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels after decades of war.