Colombo police probe deadly shootings at polls

Sri Lankan police launched an investigation yesterday into an election-day gunfight between political rivals in which three people were shot dead, including one adviser to the president. President Mahinda Rajapakse’s ruling alliance swept the polls, winning 22 out of 23 local councils in elections, but right groups said the shooting underscored the link between violence and politics on the island. Two factions within the ruling alliance clashed shortly before voting closed on Saturday, leaving Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra and two of his bodyguards dead. More than a dozen people were seriously wounded. Police said at least two officers were among those critically hurt in the shoot-out on a main street near a polling booth in the constituency of Kolonnawa, an eastern suburb of the capital Colombo. At the site of the shoot-out, a curfew was lifted yesterday morning but hundreds of police commandos and soldiers remained on patrol after party supporters went on a rampage damaging property and setting vehicles on fire. Police said Premachandra, 55, died of multiple gunshot wounds along with the two bodyguards in the short but bloody fight after a rival faction within the ruling alliance opened fire. At least 28 firearms, including automatic assault rifles, had been involved, police said. Premachandra’s arch rival, legislator Duminda Silva, was also wounded in the confrontation and was in intensive care after surgery to remove two bullets from his brain, hospital sources said. The shooting has seriously embarrassed the government, which is yet to comment, and police said no arrests had been made. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), based in Hong Kong, said Saturday’s killings underlined that the brutal and sometimes deadly nature of Sri Lankan democracy. “This violent conflict between two prominent members of the ruling regime points to the type of politics prevailing in the country,” the AHRC said in a statement. Poll results released yesterday showed Rajapakse’s United People’s Freedom Alliance party won 22 of 23 local councils, but it lost the most prestigious race — the Colombo Municipal Council. The main opposition United National Party (UNP), which has fallen into near-political impotence via a mix of internal squabbling and Rajapakse-engineered crossovers, did keep its traditional stronghold in the commercial capital Colombo.  Help from minority Muslim and Tamil voters, who comprise about 70% of the Indian Ocean island’s main city, secured the UNP win in an electorate for which the president and his influential brothers campaigned heavily. The government was keen to win the Colombo Municipal Council so it could push through plans to beautify and develop the city, a central part of its policy to boost the $50bn economy after the end of a three-decade civil war in 2009. The fractured opposition faced a rout elsewhere with Rajapakse’s party gaining large majorities in provincial towns. Saturday’s poll, in which 1.5mn people were eligible to vote, was seen as a mid-term test for Rajapakse, who won a second term for himself and his party in elections last year. Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella did not comment on the gunfight, but said in a statement that the overall victory for the ruling party was a vote of confidence for the president. Rajapakse has boosted his popularity and tightened his grip on power since government troops crushed Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009 to end nearly four decades of ethnic conflict which had claimed up to 100,000 lives. “People have endorsed the president’s plans to take development to villages after ending terrorism in 2009,” Rambukwella told reporters. After the results were released, the main opposition United National Party said the ruling alliance had broken campaign rules and that voting had been affected by widespread irregularities.