Ruling party wins majority of votes in parliamentary elections

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka's president claimed Thursday to have won enough support in parliamentary elections to form a government but not enough to push through a constitution aimed at ending a 17-year civil war.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga had campaigned on a pledge to end the war with Tamil Tiger rebels by offering the minority Tamils greater autonomy in a new constitution. The rebels' fight for an independent homeland for Tamils has killed 63,000 since 1983.

To pass the new constitution, Kumaratunga's People's Alliance needed to win a two-thirds majority, or at least 150 seats, in the 225-member Parliament. But it only won 107 seats in Tuesday's parliamentary election - far short of even the 113 seats to get a simple majority and form a new government on its own.

The opposition United National Party won 89 seats to finish second, according to final results released Thursday, meaning that Kumaratunga had to win the support of minority parties to form a coalition and avoid a hung Parliament.

Kumaratunga - whose mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, three-time prime minister, died on Tuesday - said Thursday she has secured support from a Tamil party to form the government.

She also said she was awaiting response from another minor party that would give her People's Alliance an absolute majority in Parliament.

''At the moment I can tell that the necessary seats are there,'' she said.

''I should be with the body of my mother. But since I have to run the country I don't even have that fortune,'' Kumaratunga said on state-run television.

Earlier, senior officials from minor parties could not be reached to verify a Peoples' Alliance claim that it had secured their support.

Kumaratunga's coalition had a one-seat majority in the last Parliament and was prevented from passing the constitution. She saw Tuesday's ballot as a referendum on the measure.

Kumaratunga - who lost vision in one eye in a Tamil Tiger rebel suicide bombing on Dec. 18 - had pushed for the elections to increase her majority.

In pushing for the constitution, she withstood harsh criticism from the country's powerful Buddhist monks and nationalists who frown on her attempts to grant greater autonomy to ethnic Tamil minorities.

The Sinhalese majority make up about 76 percent of the population, and most are Buddhists. Tamils make up 14 percent and are mainly Hindus; they complain of discrimination in jobs. The remaining 10 percent are Muslims and other minorities.

The Marxist People's Liberation front followed the two leading parties with an unprecedented 10 seats. The mainstream ethnic Tamil party, the Tamil United Liberation Front, won five seats. A former Tamil rebel group, Eelam People's Democratic Party, won four seats.

Shortly after the polls closed Tuesday, both the ruling People's Alliance and opposition parties made allegations of vote-rigging.

Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake annulled votes at 22 polling stations in the south and the entire Kilinochchi area about 170 miles north of the capital, Colombo.

''I cannot interpret this as a free and fair election,'' he told reporters. ''But in places like India, we have seen worse.''

At least 71 people were killed during the five-week campaign, according to the independent Center for Monitoring Election Violence.