COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling coalition has won Sri Lanka's first postwar parliamentary elections further consolidating his political dominance after the battlefield defeat of the Tamil Tigers last year. Friday's victory follows Rajapaksa's re-election in presidential polls three months ago. Despite opposition allegations the president wants to monopolize power, he is a hero to many of the country's Sinhalese majority hoping for a new era of development and reconciliation. The Election Department said Rajapaksa's United People's Freedom Alliance so far has won 117 of the 225 seats contested in Thursday's polls. Its tally was expected to rise. A party must win 113 seats to get a simple majority and form a government. It remains unclear whether Rajapaksa's coalition can secure the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution ��" which could open the way for an amendment to allow the president to serve beyond the end of his second term in 2017. The closest rival, the United National Front, has so far won 46 seats. "It's a personal victory for the president," Jehan Perera of National Peace Council activist group said of the election result. "It's a very big majority ... What it means is that the voters have given the government a blank check." Another opposition party led by defeated presidential candidate and former army chief Sarath Fonseka ��" who is currently under detention awaiting court-martial ��" has won five seats, the Election Department said. Party official Vijitha Herath said Fonseka won one of the seats. A party of the ethnic Tamil minority received 12 seats from its stronghold in the northeast, the department said.
