Reuters: Mahinda Rajapaksa and his wife cast their votes on Monday (17 August) as the former Sri Lankan president sought to return to power eight months after his stunning loss in presidential elections.

Sri Lankans are in the process of electing a new parliament in what amounts to a referendum on Rajapaksa’s comeback bid, with the reformist alliance that swept him from power seeking a stronger mandate.

The nationalist strongman has set his sights on becoming premier of a government led by his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

 But the former ally who beat him at the polls in January, President Maithripala Sirisena, now leads the party and he rules that out.

Their personal rivalry has overshadowed campaigning on the Indian Ocean island of 20 million people, which has a history of political feuding that has often spilled over into violence and even the assassination of its leaders.

Sirisena, in a cross-party alliance with a government led by the United National Party (UNP), has sought to break with that troubled past by passing reforms to weaken his own presidency and make the Government more open and accountable.

Rajapaksa, 69, is revered as a war hero by many of Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-speaking Buddhist majority for crushing a 26-year Tamil uprising in 2009. Opponents accuse him of running a corrupt, brutal and dynastic regime - charges he denies.

The burly leader sought the blessings of Buddhist monks as well as his departed parents before heading to the polling station in Madumalana, Hambantota in the country’s far south - about 250 kilometres from capital Colombo.

At stake for the wider world is whether Sri Lanka sticks to its pro-Western course or turns back towards China. Under Rajapaksa, Beijing pumped billions of dollars into making the island part of a new “Maritime Silk Route”.

Sirisena quit Rajapaksa’s Government last year to run against him, pulling off a stunning victory in Presidential Elections on 8 January.

In the election, 196 lawmakers will be elected from party lists in multi-member districts. The rest will be elected from national lists, with party leaders deciding who gets a ticket.

Minority Tamils and Muslims have rallied behind the centre-right coalition led by Wickremesinghe’s UNP, which pundits say has the best chance of forming the largest bloc in the 225-seat parliament.

A stronger UNP mandate would help complete the “unfinished business” of the reform process that has stalled because the party and its allies now lack a majority, political analysts say.