He says he wants to renegotiate the ceasefire on new, tougher terms and has hinted that he is not happy with the involvement of Norwegians as neutral brokers in the peace talks and wants them out.But Mr Rajapaksa was not always such a hardliner. They are fighting against the rule of the Sinhalese majority, who predominate in the south, which the Tigers say has been repressive towards Tamils.Many fear that today’s vote will, in effect, be a referendum on the peace process that finally brought an end to most of the violence in 2002.Although 13 candidates are standing, only two have a chance of winning – and they are at loggerheads over the peace process.On the face of it, Ranil Wickramasinghe’s credentials are impressive. It was here, not in Baghdad or Jerusalem, that suicide bombing was honed as a militant tactic – and it had nothing to do with Islam. The Tamil Tigers were the world’s most effective suicide bombers long before anyone had heard of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been fighting for an independent ethnic Tamil homeland in the north of Sri Lanka for the past two decades. He was advised to do so by police, even though he was scheduled to be standing behind bullet-proof glass. The other went ahead with his – but wearing a bullet-proof jacket.And all this in a country that has barely recovered from last year’s Boxing Day tsunami, in which at least 30,000 Sri Lankans died and half a million were made homeless.The dangers of a return to civil war cannot be underestimated At least 64,000 people died in the fighting.

The slogan reads: “Are you going to trust the country to someone who betrayed the army intelligence unit? You are the jury.”One of the main candidates had to cancel his final rally for security fears. The choice is between the architect of the peace process, and a hardliner who wants to tear it up and take a much tougher approach with the Tigers. Yesterday, the last day before the polls, analysts said the race was too close to call.
To understand how high passions run over this election, you only have to look at the posters One shows an army helmet with a bullet hole through it. But, away from palm-fringed beaches and nightclubs, and largely unnoticed by visitors, Sri Lanka faces a crucial decision.

Today, the country votes in an election which may end up making the difference between peace and war. Because, as tourists relax on the beaches, the ceasefire with the Tamil Tiger rebels – that has brought some peace for the past three and half years – has been crumbling. Analysts warn that a return to violence is becoming more likely with every passing day.Against that backdrop, Sri Lankans will be voting for a new President today. On the white, colonial verandah of the Galle Face Hotel, foreign tourists dine as the Indian Ocean breakers roll in beneath them and ceiling fans circle slowly overhead. A speedboat skims across the lagoon as locals sell orange coconuts by the roadside. Every day, flights arrive packed with tourists escaping winter. Leading Sunni politicians in Iraq have demanded an international inquiry following the discovery that 173 people had been tortured and held captive in an interior ministry bunker.