Reuters: Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Monday that he was confident of beating Mahinda Rajapaksa in a free-and-fair election.

Sri Lankans went to the polls yesterday to elect a new Parliament in what amounts to a referendum on the former President’s comeback bid, with the reformist alliance that swept him from power seeking a stronger mandate.

The nationalist Rajapaksa 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.

Wickremesinghe said the island nation was witnessing impartial elections.

“First time we are having a peaceful election in Sri Lanka. It’s not only peaceful, but no longer have you got any pressure or any tensions in your mind as to what the outcome will be and will there be violence, will it be respected. These are free and fair elections – both in terms of the legal norms as well as the democratic norms,” Wickremesinghe told reporters after casting his vote at Colombo’s University College polling station.

The personal rivalry between Rajapaksa and Sirisena 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.

Wickremesinghe credited the January revolution, in which Rajapaksa lost to Sirisena in a stunning electoral reverse, for allowing neutral polls in a country with a history of election-related violence.

“This was made possible because of the January revolution and we of the United National Front group representing a cross section of political parties and civil society and contesting under the United National Party is confident of victory that we can consolidate the 8 January revolution,” he said.

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.

“Let us now respect the verdict and let us all work together to build a new Sri Lanka,” he said.

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.

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.

Wickremesinghe said he was very confident of beating Rajapaksa.

“I haven’t got to worry any more at all about Mahinda Rajapaksa. In a free and fair election we can hold him,” a relaxed Wickremesinghe said.

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.