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Sri Lankan PM confident in parliamentary polls

Xinhua, August 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday expressed confidence of winning a parliamentary election and forming a government as he arrived in capital Colombo to cast vote.

Voting to elect a new 225-member parliament began in the early hours of Monday with a satisfactory voter turnout recorded in the first half of the morning. Voting will end on Monday afternoon in 22 districts nationwide.

"This is a free and fair election both in terms of the legal norms as well as the democratic norms," Wickremesinghe told reporters after casting his vote at the College House polling center near the University of Colombo.

Wickremesinghe is contesting from the Colombo district and will retain the prime minister post if his newly formed coalition, the United National Front (UNF), gains over 113 seats.

Election observers from the European Union told journalists that foreign observers had been deployed around the country for Monday's polls. Endi