Fear looms in Sri Lanka’s first post-Easter attack election

Polls opened in Sri Lanka’s presidential election Saturday after weeks of campaigning that largely focused on national security and religious extremism in backdrop of dely Islamic State-inspired suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday.

Nearly 16 million of island nation’s 22 million people were eligible to vote and choose a new president from a record 35 candidates. President Maithripala Sirisena, who was elected in 2015, is t seeking reelection. Results are expected as early as Sunday. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 71, a former defense official under his bror, ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was widely expected to triumph over 52-year-old ruling party Housing Minister Sajith Premasa.

A dece of peace following nearly 30 years of civil war was shattered earlier this year when homegrown militants pledging loyalty to Islamic State group detonated suicide bombs at three churches and three hotels, killing 269 people. Rajapaksa cast himself as only candidate capable of protecting Sri Lankans from such attacks. But as election approached, race became very close. Rajapaksa brors are revered by Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority for defeating Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009. Because of ir heavy-handed rule during and after war, some mirities fear ir return.

Gotabaya is accused of persecuting critics and overseeing what were called “white van squs” that whisked away journalists, activists and Tamil civilians suspected of links to Tamil Tigers rebel group. Some were tortured and released, while ors simply disappeared. Rajapaksa brors are also accused of condoning rape and extrajudicial killings and deliberately targeting civilians and hospitals during war.

Premasa, son of a former president who was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger suicide bombing, has gained support in recent weeks by promising to expand welfare programs and bringing disgruntled party stalwarts into fold. Because Rajapaksas maintained emergency laws after war ended, curtailing civil liberties, Premasa and his supporters have warned that Sri Lankans could lose freedoms if brors return to power, a line of rhetoric that helped a coalition of political foes led by Sirisena defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015 elections.

Voters started trickling in early at a polling station guarded by armed police in Dehiwala, a suburb of capital Colombo. Sha Nawaz, a 72-year-old retired state employee, said he and his wife cast ir ballots for Premesa. “ reason is we like him, young and we need a person like that in our country,” Nawaz said.