AT THIS MOMENT , THE GOVT IS TRYING TO KILL GENERAL FONSEKA SO THAT HE CANT LODGE A CHALLENGE AND RELEASE RIGGING INFO.
BBC NEWS(SOURCE),
Gen Sarath Fonseka, the challenger in Sri Lanka's presidential poll, has rejected the victory of the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He vowed to mount a legal challenge to the outcome of what is the first election since Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated after 25 years of civil war.
The Elections Commission declared Mr Rajapaksa the victor with 57% of votes cast, to 40% for his rival.
Troops earlier surrounded the Colombo hotel where Gen Fonseka is staying.
A government spokesman told the BBC they did not intend to hold Gen Fonseka but were looking for army deserters.
A military spokesman said the troops' deployment was a "protective measure".
AT THE SCENE
Anbarasan Ethirajan, BBC News, Colombo
I'm now inside the hotel where the main opposition candidate and other opposition leaders are staying. It is surrounded by heavily armed troops and commandos.
There is a tense atmosphere. One of the opposition alliance leaders said it was intimidating and that the alliance had appealed to the government to withdraw the troops.
The military had earlier said they were looking for about 400 army deserters and ex-soldiers staying in the hotel and that they should surrender immediately.
The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan, who is in the same hotel as Gen Fonseka and other opposition leaders, says the troops' presence has created a very tense atmosphere.
An opposition spokesman, Rauf Hakeem, said opposition members had appealed to the government over what he said were "high-handed tactics" intended to intimidate them.
He told reporters there were no deserters inside the hotel.
Gen Fonseka has alleged vote-rigging and has lodged several objections with Sri Lanka's electoral commission.
He has also accused the government of wanting to kill him, the BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says.
Independent observers have been perturbed by two main elements, our correspondent says, one of which is the amount of violence in the run-up to the election - with most complaints about the perpetration of violence laid at the door of the president's side.
In pictures: President claims victory
The other is what monitors say is the misuse of public resources and state media, particularly state-run TV, which provided blanket coverage of the incumbent president's campaign.
Some 70% of Sri Lanka's 14 million-strong electorate turned out to vote. However, turnout in the Tamil areas in the north-east, where the fiercest fighting occurred during the conflict, was less than 30%.
Lucien Rajakarunanayake, a spokesman for Mr Rajapaksa, told the Associated Press news agency that the president had "won a historic and resounding victory in the first free and fair elections held throughout the country since the defeat of terrorism".
Supporters of Mr Rajapaksa celebrated in the streets of Colombo, waving Sri Lankan flags and setting off fireworks.
Bitter fight
After a violent and acrimonious campaign, during which four people died and hundreds were wounded, Tuesday's election was largely peaceful.
In pictures: Sri Lanka votes
Profile: Mahinda Rajapaksa
Profile: Gen Sarath Fonseka
But there were serious exceptions, especially in the Tamil-populated north.
In the city of Jaffna, the private Centre for Monitoring Election Violence said there were at least six explosions before and just after voting began.
Later there were two blasts in Vavuniya, the town near the huge camps for people displaced by the war. The organisation said it feared this was a systematic attempt to scare people away from voting.
There were also grenade attacks in the Sinhala-dominated centre and south.
It later turned out that Gen Fonseka had not been able to vote because his name was not on the register.
The two men were closely associated with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers last May but fell out soon afterwards. Gen Fonseka quit the military, complaining that he had been sidelined after the war.
The president's side accuses the general of courting separatists. The general has accused the president of plotting vote-rigging and violence, something his rival denies.
Both main candidates have promised voters costly subsidies and public sector pay rises.
However, economists say this will make it hard for the country to meet cost-cutting obligations imposed under the terms of a $2.6bn (£1.6bn) International Monetary Fund loan.
BBC NEWS(SOURCE),
Gen Sarath Fonseka, the challenger in Sri Lanka's presidential poll, has rejected the victory of the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He vowed to mount a legal challenge to the outcome of what is the first election since Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated after 25 years of civil war.
The Elections Commission declared Mr Rajapaksa the victor with 57% of votes cast, to 40% for his rival.
Troops earlier surrounded the Colombo hotel where Gen Fonseka is staying.
A government spokesman told the BBC they did not intend to hold Gen Fonseka but were looking for army deserters.
A military spokesman said the troops' deployment was a "protective measure".
Anbarasan Ethirajan, BBC News, Colombo
I'm now inside the hotel where the main opposition candidate and other opposition leaders are staying. It is surrounded by heavily armed troops and commandos.
There is a tense atmosphere. One of the opposition alliance leaders said it was intimidating and that the alliance had appealed to the government to withdraw the troops.
The military had earlier said they were looking for about 400 army deserters and ex-soldiers staying in the hotel and that they should surrender immediately.
The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan, who is in the same hotel as Gen Fonseka and other opposition leaders, says the troops' presence has created a very tense atmosphere.
An opposition spokesman, Rauf Hakeem, said opposition members had appealed to the government over what he said were "high-handed tactics" intended to intimidate them.
He told reporters there were no deserters inside the hotel.
Gen Fonseka has alleged vote-rigging and has lodged several objections with Sri Lanka's electoral commission.
He has also accused the government of wanting to kill him, the BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says.
Independent observers have been perturbed by two main elements, our correspondent says, one of which is the amount of violence in the run-up to the election - with most complaints about the perpetration of violence laid at the door of the president's side.
In pictures: President claims victory
The other is what monitors say is the misuse of public resources and state media, particularly state-run TV, which provided blanket coverage of the incumbent president's campaign.
Some 70% of Sri Lanka's 14 million-strong electorate turned out to vote. However, turnout in the Tamil areas in the north-east, where the fiercest fighting occurred during the conflict, was less than 30%.
Lucien Rajakarunanayake, a spokesman for Mr Rajapaksa, told the Associated Press news agency that the president had "won a historic and resounding victory in the first free and fair elections held throughout the country since the defeat of terrorism".
Supporters of Mr Rajapaksa celebrated in the streets of Colombo, waving Sri Lankan flags and setting off fireworks.
Bitter fight
After a violent and acrimonious campaign, during which four people died and hundreds were wounded, Tuesday's election was largely peaceful.
In pictures: Sri Lanka votes
Profile: Mahinda Rajapaksa
Profile: Gen Sarath Fonseka
But there were serious exceptions, especially in the Tamil-populated north.
In the city of Jaffna, the private Centre for Monitoring Election Violence said there were at least six explosions before and just after voting began.
Later there were two blasts in Vavuniya, the town near the huge camps for people displaced by the war. The organisation said it feared this was a systematic attempt to scare people away from voting.
There were also grenade attacks in the Sinhala-dominated centre and south.
It later turned out that Gen Fonseka had not been able to vote because his name was not on the register.
The two men were closely associated with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers last May but fell out soon afterwards. Gen Fonseka quit the military, complaining that he had been sidelined after the war.
The president's side accuses the general of courting separatists. The general has accused the president of plotting vote-rigging and violence, something his rival denies.
Both main candidates have promised voters costly subsidies and public sector pay rises.
However, economists say this will make it hard for the country to meet cost-cutting obligations imposed under the terms of a $2.6bn (£1.6bn) International Monetary Fund loan.
