COLOMBO, 5 April 2004 — Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s party led election results announced yesterday but failed to secure a stable government needed to revive peace talks with Tamil Tiger rebels.
Results of Friday’s vote gave Chandrika’s leftist Freedom Alliance 105 seats, or eight seats short of the magic number of 113 needed to win an absolute majority in the 225-member legislature.
The United National Party (UNP) of her main rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had tried to make the election a referendum on his efforts to broker peace, trailed with 82 seats.
Chandrika, who can remain president until December 2005, has to invite a legislator-elect from her party to form a Cabinet and prove a majority when the new Parliament meets on April 22, election officials said. However, there were no immediate signs that any of the smaller parties were willing to join Chandrika’s Freedom Alliance, which has a strong contingent of Marxists who are heavily critical of concessions to Tamil rebels.
Proxies of the Tamil Tigers, the Tamil National Alliance, said they would provide support to any future government that recognizes them as the “sole representatives” of the Tamil minority and accepts their plan to devolve power.
The Tigers in November unveiled their blueprint for peace in the form of establishing an “Interim Self-Governing Authority” in war-torn areas, but Chandrika’s party has already rejected it, arguing it was a stepping stone to a separate state.
The Tiger proxies won 22 seats to become the third largest group while the radical nationalist all-clergy National Heritage Party saw nine of its monks elected to Parliament.
