Backgrounder: Sri Lanka's 5th presidential election

    COLOMBO, Nov. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Sri Lanka's 5th presidential election started Thursday morning as 13.3 million men and women began to cast their ballots to choose their new president from 13 contenders.

    According to the constitution, Sri Lanka's president is the head of the state, the head of the executive and of the government, and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

    The president shall be directly elected by the people, and shall hold office for a term of six years.

    No person who has been twice elected to the office of president shall be qualified thereafter to be elected as the president again.

    An estimated 13.3 million Sri Lankans will vote Thursday with pollsters predicting a close race between the main candidates Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

    This election is the 5th presidential election of this Indian Ocean island country since the promulgation of the constitution of Sri Lanka in 1978.

    The polling, commenced at 7:00 a.m. (0100 GMT), is scheduled toclose at 4:00 p.m. (1000 GMT). There will be 10,486 polling stations, covering 160 polling divisions in 22 districts.

    According to the Election Commissioner's Department this year 13,327,160 persons are eligible to cast their votes including 428,128 new voters.

    Of these 323,428 are postal votes and 24,724 are votes of displaced persons.

    Although 14 candidates had made deposits only 13 candidates submitted their nominations to enter the presidential race.

    No major incidents were reported after campaigning ended at midnight on Nov. 14. Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake has urged voters to go to the polling booths early.

    Counting of ballot papers will begin as soon as the voting endsand the final result of the election will be announced early Friday, said Dissanayake. Enditem