TMVP wins mini polls

Government-backed former Tamil Tiger rebels accused of abductions and killings have won a landslide in a Sri Lankan local election that critics say was marred by the threat of violence, officials said today.

The TMVP, made up of fighters who defected from the mainstream Tigers in 2004 and helped the government evict their former comrades from the east of the island, polled first in all nine local contests in yesterday's vote.

"TMVP captured all the local authorities," Batticaloa Assistant Election Commissioner Thuraisingam Krishnananthalingam said after an all-night vote count. "Out of the total cast, they have got more than 70 per cent of the vote."

The local elections are seen as a dry run for a wider provincial vote in the north and east - the government's blueprint for devolution in minority Tamil areas it hopes will go hand-in-hand with its push to crush the Tigers militarily.

The government, itself increasingly isolated over its human rights record as a 25-year civil war escalates, gave the armed faction free rein in the eastern Batticaloa district for months as the military battled the rebels.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's administration has long refused to disarm the TMVP, arguing it could not find anyone carrying guns to disarm - despite the fact residents and aid workers could until a few months ago.

Election commissioner Krishnananthalingam said overall voter turnout was more than 60 per cent.

The main opposition UNP and the Tiger-backed TNA boycotted the election for control of eight local government bodies and Batticaloa municipal council, but were perceived to have no real power base in the area.

Rights groups and diplomats have questioned the government's decision to endorse the TMVP, which is also accused of child soldier recruitment.

Pradeep Master, the group's Batticaloa political wing leader, is a former Tiger who joined the rebels as a child soldier. He is tipped as Batticaloa's next mayor.

A host of other former militant groups who joined the democratic mainstream in the 1980s also took part in the poll, as well as the island's main Muslim party.

"In Batticaloa, not only TMVP, many other armed groups are also there. Some of the Muslims also have arms," said Kingsley Rodrigo, chairman of the People's Alliance for Free and Fair Elections, the island's main election monitoring body.

"They have been keeping the arms with them. So I am not going to say this election is a free and fair one."

Ordinary Tamils repeatedly displaced by a war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people since 1983 - some displaced yet again by the 2004 tsunami - long for lasting peace. But many are anxious about what the future will bring under the TMVP.

The group's Tiger heritage is never far away. Like the mainstream rebels, its emblem is a roaring golden Tiger baring its claws against a red background. The party has replaced the Tigers' crossed rifles with a pair of shaking hands.