Reports of bomb blasts in Jaffna, early at dawn this morning seem to confirm allegations by the opposition and Tamil parties that the ruling party would indulge in violence and rigging in the ongoing Sri Lankan Presidential elections today. The bomb attacks are reported to have been hurled at the house of Subramaniam Sharma, an activist of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party. While the residents of Jaffna have reported hearing four explosions, the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMVE) spoke person D M Dissanayake has confirmed only two blasts but not sure who was responsible for the attacks. 
Reports not from the mainstream media are pouring in about wide spread attacks on the offices of the principal Tamil opposition party the Tamil National Alliance, last night in Jaffna. It is also reported that the residence of the Jaffna MP Suresh Premachandran was attacked by unidentified persons who came in a “white van”.
Earlier, the election campaign was marred by nearly 1000 incidents of violence, and it was reported that four political activists were killed. The common opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka alleged that the Rajapakse government would unleash violence to keep away the voters from polling, facilitating wide spread rigging. The incoming reports from Jaffna and other Tamil speaking areas seem to bear out his allegations.
Fonseka and other opposition leaders, in the final stages of the election campaign, had further alleged that the ruling party may resort to a military coup to stay in power. It is also significant to note that Rajapakse suffered a serious setback at the end of the campaign with Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga, the senior most leader of the ruling party extending her support to Fonseka.
Ms. Kumaratunga poked her finger directly at Rajapakse declaring that “I took the decision to end four years of silence, as I am deeply concerned about the violence, intimidation and corruption“. She further commented that “The prevailing violence and the breakdown in law and order poses a serious challenge to democracy, democratic institutions and values, as well as all the basic freedoms we cherish and have protected with great sacrifice over the centuries“.
With no strong independent institutions to monitor and assure free and fair polls and the ruling party taking free hold of the state machinery, manipulating it to its own ends, Rajapakse might in all probability leave no stone unturned to stay in power. If Rajapakse resorts to organized violence as his last measure, – given his record does seem possible – to stick to power, the opposition might suffer a lesser version of intimidation at the hands of the ruling clique than the Tamils. But it will be the end of all traces of democracy, an undeclared state of totalitarian rule within the Sri Lanka polity.
Tags: Centre for Monitoring Violence, DM Dissanayake, Fonseka, Jaffna, Kumaratunga, Rajapakse, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan elections, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance