President Mahinda Rajapakse has won the first election in Sri Lanka and the Tamil rebels were defeated after 25 years of civil war, according to state television.
Although the final results has not yet been declared, Rajapaksa appears to have more than half the votes won.
About 100 armed soldiers surrounded the hotel in Colombo, where his rival in the elections, General Sarath Fonseka.
A spokesman for the government told the BBC that he had no intention to keep the Gen Fonseka, but the search for deserters.
Ethirajan Anbarasan of the BBC, which is in the same hotel as the center of Colombo and the opposition leader Gen. Fonseka said that the presence of troops has created a tense atmosphere.
A military spokesman said the deployment was a degree of protection.
Udaya Nanayakkara said that about 400 people gathered at the Hotel du Lac cinnamon in the capital.
Now I’m in the hotel meeting where the main opposition candidates and other leaders of the opposition. It is surrounded by heavily armed troops and commandos.
It is a tense environment. A leader of the opposition alliance said it was intimidating and that the alliance has asked the government to withdraw its troops.
The opposition leader said he was willing to accept the election result as legitimate because they had not seen major embezzlement and fraud in the elections.
The army had announced that they were looking for about 400 deserters and former soldiers remain in the hotel and immediately available.
Troops’ We do not know what his reason and have to start as a measure of protection to the hotel were installed backwards, and the people and to leave to be monitored, he said.
Gen Fonseka said he feared that the troops, to arrest him if he had planned to win the election, a charge denied by the authorities.
His spokesman Rauf Hakeem said that the opposition, the government on what they saw as an intimidation tactic designed to intimidate the opposition called.
With nearly 85% of the counted votes, the Electoral Commissioner Rajapaksa won 4.99 million votes to 3.39 million for his rivals.
About 70% of the electorate of just over 14 million went to the polls.
Rupavahini state television said the current president a decisive victory with a majority of more than 1.8 million votes had won.
AFP news agency quotes a spokesman Rajapaksa, Chandrapala Liyanage, who says: The president is very happy and grateful for all voters. Under electoral rules, Sri Lanka, if no candidate receives 50% of the vote count in the first vote, voters second – or third – the preferences are counted to determine the winner.
The BBC Charles Haviland in Colombo says there is probably more a matter of time, giving the team until Gen. Fonseka, but the opposition in May to some objections to the manner in which he raise the campaign.
Independent observers have been disturbed by two main factors, says our correspondent, of which the amount of violence before the elections – is the most complaints about violence in the lateral President.
The other is what monitors say the abuse of public funds and state media.
State television, in particular, gave wide coverage to Rajapaksa, our correspondent for the BBC, by General Fonseka about a footer, and public buses were used to transport all equipment operators traditional country.
The government said it paid for the use of buses and other public funds, but the independent boards of elections are not convinced, says our correspondent.
After a bitter campaign and vitriol, in which four people were killed and hundreds injured Tuesday election was largely peaceful.
However, exceptions have been heavier, especially in the northern Tamil population.
In the city of Jaffna, said the private Center for Monitoring election violence, there were at least six explosions before and after the start of the vote.
Then there were two explosions in Vavuniya, in the vicinity of large camps for people displaced by the war. The organization said the fear that a systematic attempt was afraid people from voting.
There were grenade attacks in the majority Sinhalese, center and south, where fighting between the two candidates was particularly galling, says our correspondent.
It turned out later that General Fonseka was able to vote because his name was not on the register.
Both men were closely associated with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May last year, but fell shortly thereafter. Gen Fonseka leaving the army, complaining that he pushed to the brink of war.
Side accuses the President General Woo separatists. The general accused the president of planning electoral fraud and violence, which denies his rivals.
The two leading candidates have promised the voters costly subsidies and wage increases in this area.
The economists say this will make it difficult for the country to meet the costs of reducing their commitments under 2.6 billion U.S. dollars (1.6 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund.