Hung parliament in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka was left with a hung parliament yesterday that may delay a resumption of peace talks with Tamil rebels after President Chandrika Kumaratunga's party won an election but fell short of an absolute majority.

Voters also sent a mixed message by returning two strong and diametrically opposed ethnic parties - one backed by the Tamil Tiger rebels and the other by a party of Buddhist monks.

The result amounted to a rejection of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP), which signed a ceasefire two years ago. It left unresolved how to resume talks with the rebels who are fighting for a Tamil state in the north.

Final results gave Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance 105 seats out of 225, eight short of a majority. The UNP won 82 seats.

Kumaratunga's spokesman Harim Peiris was buoyant: "It is quite a drubbing and very clear who got the mandate." The head of state is likely to name a new prime minister today, ending two and a half years of uncomfortable cohabitation with the UNP.

The Freedom Alliance took 45.8 per cent of the vote, compared with 37.9 per cent for Wickremesinghe's party.

"If not 100 per cent, it was near 100 per cent, a free and fair election," Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake said of the island's least violent ballot in decades.

The rebel-backed Tamil National Alliance took 22 seats in the north and east. The National Heritage Party of Buddhist monks won nine seats, all in or near Colombo or central Kandy.

Kumaratunga's supporters in parliament are likely to work for support from minor parties. They must also deal with the People's Liberation Front (JVP), a nationalist party from the Sinhalese majority which joined the Freedom Alliance this year.

Although now in the political mainstream, the JVP led two rebellions in which more than 80,000 people died and has been extremely critical of Wickremesinghe's peace process. It has also said negotiations are the only way to end the war, however.

The JVP could be a concern for investors because of its stance against economic reforms and privatisation.