Sri Lankan president takes lead in election, opposition claims rigging

COLOMBO, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken a comfortable lead over his main rival former Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka till 10 a.m. (0430 GMT) Wednesday as nearly half of the votes were counted.

Local media reported President Rajapaksa received 2,960,507 (or 60.27 percent) votes while Fonseka secured 1,690,990 (37.99 percent).

Meanwhile, a statement allegedly issued by the office of Fonseka said the election has been systematically rigged by the government "with the Election Commissioner placed under house arrest with immediate effect to suppress the electoral outcome."

"All the election results released so far have been manipulated. Do not trust the results being presented to you as election results. These are not official results," a statement circulated in cyberspace said.

"The government has ordered General Fonseka and his entire family to be arrested with immediate effect. Members of the military have been deployed with weapons and have now surrounded the hotel and are waiting for the final orders to arrest everyone, " the statement said.

The authenticity of the statement can not be verified at the moment as the telephone numbers of Fonseka's office was unresponsive.

The island's sixth presidential election was held with turnout estimated to be over 70 percent except the Northern Province which had been under the control of Tamil Tiger rebels for decades before it was recaptured by the troops in May 2009.

The Department of Elections said 14,088,500 Sri Lankans were eligible to cast their votes at 11,098 polling stations from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time (0130 GMT to 1030 GMT) to choose their next president mainly from Rajapaksa and Fonseka though there are 22 candidates.