Colombo: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's Leftist alliance was leading over her rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's party today (Apr 3, 2004) as counting in Parliamentary elections began, early results indicated.

The Election Commission began releasing results early today showing Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance (FA) pulling in 1.56 million votes out of 3.7 million of votes counted so far.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe's right-wing United National Party (UNP) was drawing in second with 1.2 million votes in yesterday's (Apr 2, 2004) election in which about three-quarters of the electorate, a little over 10 million people, voted.

In the once embattled North and East of the island, proxies of Tamil Tiger rebels procured 13.8 per cent of the votes counted so far, with 450,000 votes being cast for them.

The two districts out of the 22 polling districts went with one each to Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe.

In terms of seats, Kumaratunga's party had five while Wickremesinghe's party had seven.

However, most analysts agree that no single party will be able to secure an absolute majority in the 225-member Parliament, given the proportional representation electoral system that allows room for smaller parties.

As such, smaller groups like the Tamil National Alliance, a proxy for Tamil Tiger rebels, or the first-ever all-Buddhist monk party to stand in the elections, the National Heritage Party, could play the role of kingmaker in the coming days.

The snap Parliamentary poll called by Kumaratunga was the island's most peaceful in recent times; both private election monitors and party officials concurred.

"Generally speaking, election laws were very well enforced and I am grateful to the police as well as all others responsible for it," said Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake.

He added that his department was inquiring into 250 complaints of intimidation or vote stuffing.

The final party positions were expected to be known before midday today, but could be delayed if re-polling had to be ordered in any of the areas where there had been reports of ballot stuffing, election officials said.

The private Centre for Monitoring Election Violence said that the vote was "considerably and qualitatively less violent than the December 2001 general election."

The election was called by President Kumaratunga nearly four years early after she sacked the legislature controlled by her bitter political rival, Premier Wickremesinghe, in January.

During a contentious two years in a cohabitation governing arrangement, she has criticised the Prime Minister's handling of the Norwegian-backed peace bid with Tamil Tigers.

She has said that while she was kept in the dark about peace negotiations, Wickremesinghe has conceded too much in talks with the Tamil Tigers to end their struggle for independence, which has claimed over 60,000 lives.