Prime minister takes lead in early Sri Lanka results

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's prime minister — a hard-liner toward Tamil Tiger rebels — held a slim lead today with nearly half the votes counted from the island's presidential election, in which grenade attacks and intimidation kept many minority Tamils from the polls.

As votes were slowly hand-tabulated today, the election commission said Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse had about 2.4 million to nearly 2.3 million for his closest rival, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Balloting was smooth Thursday in western and southern parts of the island nation and overall turnout was slightly less than 10 million, or about 75 percent of 13.3 million registered voters, election officials said.

But violence erupted Friday in Akkaraipattu, 140 miles east of Colombo, as suspected rebels tossed grenades into a Mosque during morning prayers, killing at least four Muslim worshippers and wounding 10, police said.

There were no other immediate details of the attack and it wasn't known if it was linked to the voting.

During the election Thursday in the north and east — territory of the feared Tamil Tiger rebels — grenade attacks, roadblocks and fear kept many Tamils from voting. Others heeded a boycott called by pro-rebel groups that complained neither of the main candidates would help them win a homeland in northeastern Sri Lanka.

The Tamils, whose plight is at the heart of a civil war that has lasted more than two decades, make up just under 20 percent of Sri Lanka's 19 million people but were potential kingmakers in the tightly contested election.

The race pitted hard-line Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse against dovish opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose softer line on peace talks with the rebels won him wide support among Tamils, a largely Hindu minority.

The new president "will have to sort out the country's main ethnic problem," said D. Maulana, 35, who sells auto parts in Colombo. "As all of us know without that, nothing can go forward until it is over."

No polling stations were set up in Tiger strongholds because of security concerns, but the government set up special voting booths on the edge of insurgent territory to accommodate the more than 200,000 voters who live behind rebel lines.

But officials said roadblocks and intimidation had kept most from making it out of rebel territory to vote.