Sri Lanka's ultra-nationalist parties, which fielded the hijacker of an Alitalia jumbo jet and a man who tried to assassinate former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi, were routed in parliamentary polls, results showed Wednesday.
The Sihala Urumaya (SU), or Sinhalese heritage party, which had as a candidate disgraced naval rating Vijithamuni Rohana de Silva who hit Gandhi with a rifle butt here in July 1987, was demolished.
The SU took less than one percent of the votes in most areas and in the northern peninsula of Jaffna it received just one postal vote.
However, with a few thousand urban votes, the SU could have the satisfaction of beating another hardline nationalist group, the Sons of the Soil Party (SMBP), which fielded hijacker Sepala Ekanayake.
Ekanayake threatened to blow up an Alitalia jet with 261 passengers on board at Bangkok airport in June 1982, demanding 300,000 dollars and an Italian visa so he could join his Italian wife and only son.
After surrendering, Ekanayake was sentenced in Sri Lanka to life imprisonment, but the sentence was later reduced to five years, De Silva was sentenced to six years in jail but was paroled in 1989.
Before Tuesday's vote, their parties, which both advocate tough military action against Tamil Tiger separatists, tried but failed to form a coalition.
As counting of votes continued, trends showed that the ruling People's Alliance had taken an early lead with the main opposition United National Party (UNP) a close second.
The Marxist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, was a distant third but with a significant number of votes that could give it a decisive role in the event of a hung parliament -- COLOMBO (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
