Sri Lanka votes in tense post-war election

Pre-dawn bomb blasts in Sri Lanka's Tamil heartland escalated tensions as the country went to the polls Tuesday in the first presidential election since the end of its 37-year ethnic conflict.The bomb attacks in the northern peninsula of Jaffna were a violent start to an already bitter contest between President Mahinda Rajapakse and his former army chief Sarath Fonseka that threatens more instability in the island nation.

Sri Lanka goes to the polls Tuesday in its first post-war presidential election, contested by the men who ended the island nation's 37-year conflict but whose bitter clash threatens more instability.Last May, President Mahinda Rajapakse and his army chief Sarath Fonseka wiped out Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels, who had fought for a Tamil homeland since 1972, in a military campaign since dogged by allegations of war crimes.

Sri Lankans voted under tight security in their first post-war presidential election on Tuesday amid claims of violence and voter intimidation after a bitter and highly personal campaign.Both sides said they expected to emerge victorious when results are announced Wednesday and blamed each other for a series of election-day attacks, which one monitoring group said might number 150 in total. "We will have a great victory," President Mahinda Rajapakse told reporters after casting his ballot in his southern home constituency of Mulkirigala.

War-scarred Sri Lanka holds a peace-time presidential election this week after a bitter and highly personal campaign between the architects of the crushing of an almost four-decade-long insurgency.President Mahinda Rajapakse will face his former army chief Sarath Fonseka on Tuesday in an intriguing contest between two men who were victorious allies on the battlefield last year but are now sworn enemies at the ballot box.

Sri Lanka's president confirmed a 30-month jail term for his ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka, who led troops to victory over Tamil rebels and ended a decades-long civil war, officials said Thursday.Fonseka fell out with President Mahinda Rajapakse over who should take credit for defeating the Tamil Tigers in May last year and unsuccessfully tried to unseat him in a January election.Fonseka was found guilty at a court martial on four counts of making irregular purchases for the military when he was its commander at the height of fighting in the island's northeast.

Sri Lanka's former army chief Sarath Fonseka, who is being court martialled, called for the "rule of law" in an attack on President Mahinda Rajapakse at the opening of parliament Thursday.Fonseka helped crush Tamil Tiger rebels and their 37-year separatist fight last year, but later fell out with Rajapakse and unsuccessfully tried to unseat him in presidential elections in January.

Sri Lankans were voting Thursday in a parliamentary poll that is widely expected to see President Mahinda Rajapakse's ruling party march to a comfortable win over the fractured opposition.For many Sri Lankans, it is the first parliamentary election in which they can vote without fear of Tamil Tiger violence and suicide attacks after the rebels were defeated last year after three decades of conflict.Rajapakse called the election two months ahead of schedule after his resounding victory in a presidential vote in January.

Incumbent Mahinda Rajapakse took a strong lead in counting Wednesday from Sri Lanka's bitterly disputed presidential election, officials said, as armed troops surrounded the hotel of his main rival.Election officials said Rajapakse, who is being challenged by his estranged former army chief Sarath Fonseka, had won 60 percent of the vote with about a fifth of the ballots counted.The winner of the island's first election since last year's defeat of a three-decade insurgency by ethnic Tamil rebels was set to be announced around midday (0630 GMT).