4:09am UK, Tuesday January 26, 2010

Andy Jack, Sky News Online

Bomb blasts in Sri Lanka’s Tamil heartland escalated tensions as the country went to the polls in the first presidential election since the end of its 37-year civil war.

The bomb attacks on the house of a ruling party activist in the northern peninsula of Jaffna underlined the bitter nature of the contest between President Mahinda Rajapakse and his main challenger, former army chief Sarath Fonseka.

Last May, Rajapakse and Fonseka wiped out Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, who had fought for a Tamil homeland since 1972, in a military campaign since dogged by allegations of war crimes.

But the once-close battlefield allies have turned into enemies after Fonseka, a 59-year-old political novice, decided to challenge his former boss at the ballot box on an anti-corruption platform.

Fonseka alleged the government intended to unleash violence to intimidate voters and was preparing a coup if it lost.

In turn, he was accused of working with a militia of army deserters who could disrupt the vote.

In Jaffna, residents reported hearing four explosions before polling began but the monitors could only immediately account for two of them.

At least four political activists have been killed and nearly 1,000 election-related incidents of violence were reported to police before the polls, which involve 22 candidates in total.