Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapakse has conceded
defeat in presidential elections, officials said
Friday, after a bitter campaign that saw Asia’s
longest-serving leader brought down by
allegations of corruption and a failure to bring
about post-war reconciliation.
After the island’s tightest presidential vote in
decades, a top aide to Rajapakse said the one-
time strongman accepted the decision of voters
who turned out in force on Thursday.
“The president concedes defeat and will ensure a
smooth transition of power, bowing to the
wishes of the people,” presidential press
secretary Vijayananda Herath told AFP, adding
that he had already vacated his main official
residence in a symbolic gesture of defeat.
Official sources said opposition presidential
candidate Maithripala Sirisena, a former minister
who united a fractured opposition to pull off an
unlikely victory, had an unassailable lead in
results announced so far.
With nearly a third of the ballots officially
declared, Sirisena has 52.49 percent of the vote
and Rajapakse 46.21 percent.
“The president has seen a clear majority for the
opposition candidate and there is no way to
overcome that,” a source close to the outgoing
president said.
Herath said Rajapakse had conceded defeat
during a meeting with Ranil Wickremesinghe,
who leads the opposition in parliament and who
Sirisena has said would be appointed as his
prime minister.
Opposition lawmaker Harsha de Silva said
transitional arrangements were being discussed
with Rajapakse, and that Wickremesinghe had
“guaranteed him and his family security”.
There was no immediate comment from Sirisena
who was still at his private home in
Polonnaruwa, east of the capital Colombo.
– International pressure
Rajapakse had seemed assured of victory when
he called snap polls in November seeking an
unprecedented third term, five years after
crushing a violent separatist rebellion that had
traumatised the country for decades.
But he has become unpopular in recent years,
dogged by accusations of increasing
authoritarianism and corruption, and a failure to
reach out to minority Tamils after a decades-
long civil war.
Sirisena’s surprise decision to defect from the
government and stand against him galvanised
disparate opposition groups.
Despite sporadic campaign violence including the
death of one opposition party worker, the vote
passed off largely peacefully, although there
were some reports of intimidation in Tamil
areas.
Police said they had made 175 election-related
arrests, but described the polls as some of the
most peaceful in Sri Lanka’s recent history.
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