Sleepy day at the polls in Sri Lanka

By Soutik Biswas BBC News Online correspondent in Gampaha, Sri Lanka

The relaxed atmosphere was reflected in smiles on the streets

At a sprawling, village school-turned-polling station in Sri Lanka's western Gampaha district, nearly 70% of the voters had cast their ballots within five hours of the polls opening.

There were no party workers hanging around the polling stations, no political banners or bunting hung across the road.

Inside the polling booth, the voters, officials and the policemen were relaxed, all smiles.

There was only one giveaway that the polls were underway.

The usually clean streets outside the polling station were littered with small ticket-like pieces of paper carrying party names and emblems - a feeble, last-minute effort to influence the voter.

Peace and quiet

Distributing party pamphlets outside polling stations is banned.

"Over 1,000 of the 1,600 voters enlisted with our polling station have cast their votes in the first five hours. And it's been very quiet and peaceful," said polling officer WMP Vasale at the school.

He was not off the mark.

Driving down the long winding roads cutting through this lush green district of coconut plantations and paddy fields, one hardly noticed that a general election was in progress.

The school music room became a polling station

Small groups of voters walked quietly up to the polling stations, stood in separate thin rope-ringed queues for men and women, cast their ballots and left.

"These elections here are so quiet and the voters are so tranquil," said Jerome Mindes, an American observer visiting a polling station.

Udaya Edirimanna, a young Sri Lankan researcher who had returned home from a project in Afghanistan to keep track of poll violence for a Colombo-based watchdog institute, agreed.

"I went around during the last elections. There were murders then on election day and polling stations were bombed. This is a very calm election," he said.

Rumours

In Katana town, Quintus Appuhamy, a smiling young activist of the JVP - the former revolutionaries and current political partners of President Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance - differed slightly.

"Everything is fine here," he said. "But I have heard of some incidents of ballot stuffing by the opponents. I don't know where, though."

It was like just another day in the sleepy villages of the district, hometown of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's family.

Young boys in Eminem, Bob Marley and Che Guevara T-shirts zipped down the main road on motorcycles. A group of men crowded around film posters which announced the arrival of offerings like My Wife's Lover and Undercover.

It was just like another quiet day in the district of Gampaha

There is evident prosperity in the district, part of which straddles the coast, and has over 1.3 million voters. The district also has two free trade zones.

There are hotels and resorts with names like Happy Bringing Hotel, an eatery called New England, a shop curiously called Chick Sales Centre and a large number of quaint bungalows, dispensaries, postal offices and police stations.

There is even a gas station tucked away in the swathe of coconut plantations and a small billboard of a firm called House Plan and Estimate hinting at a real estate business.

The district's proximity to the capital Colombo, some 55km away, has meant that a number of Gampaha residents take the train to the capital for work.

High turnout

Back at a polling station in a school in Katana, polling officer KA Rupasingha happily reported that some 1,000 of the 1,270 voters registered with his station had cast their ballots, with an hour to go before voting ended.

"We saw the heaviest polling in the morning. And it has been very peaceful," he said.

It was just another day in the life of the people of Katana.

They entered the mathematics classroom which has been turned into the polling station to cast their votes, and they exited through the music classroom, where the percussion instruments hang from the ceiling.

"This is what our students do anyway. Maths classes followed by music classes," joked a voter.