Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse looked set for victory on Wednesday in a bitterly fought election, as troops surrounded the hotel housing his main rival, who appealed for foreign protection.

With nearly 85 percent of ballots counted, official results showed Rajapakse, 64, had already secured more than 50 percent of the total 9.84 million votes cast.

As the votes were being counted in what was the island's first presidential election since the defeat in May of a 30-year ethnic Tamil insurgency, tensions soared in the capital Colombo.

Up to 80 soldiers with machine guns surrounded the luxury hotel where Rajapakse's main challenger, former army chief Sarath Fonseka, was staying with several other opposition leaders.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said the troops had been deployed following information that army deserters were among some 400 people inside.

The opposition condemned what it called the military's "unfathomable" intimidation of their candidate, and Fonseka's spokesman, Mano Ganeshan, said they would appeal for foreign protection.

"I am going to meet a diplomat of a neighbouring country to seek assurances of the safety of Sarath Fonseka," Ganeshan said, in an apparent reference to India.

Vitriolic campaign

The government had earlier accused Fonseka of employing a private militia consisting of army deserters, a charge denied by the opposition.

The campaign's vitriolic nature, the personal animosity between the two main candidates and tit-for-tat accusations of coup plots had all fuelled concerns that any result would be contested and foment new unrest.

Last May, Rajapakse and Fonseka had worked in tandem to wipe out the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had fought for a Tamil homeland since 1972.

But from close allies on the battlefield they turned into irreconcilable enemies after Fonseka, a 59-year-old political novice, decided to challenge his former boss at the ballot box on an anti-corruption platform.

Opposition spokesman Rauf Hakeen argued that the electoral process had been violated even before voting began.

"On the election day there were no serious incidents to talk about, but you have to look at the election process from the beginning," he said, adding that state resources had been abused, including the state-run media.

Four people were killed and more than 1,000 election-related incidents were reported to police in the run-up to Tuesday's contest.

There were a number of violent incidents during voting, including bomb attacks in the northern Tamil stronghold of Jaffna, which monitors said had deterred some people from voting.

Friends-turned-foes

Last year's military defeat of the LTTE had made Rajapakse and Fonseka national heroes in the eyes of the country's Sinhalese majority to which both men belong.

But the victory has since been mired in allegations of war crimes. The United Nations says 7,000 Tamil civilians may have died in the final months of the fighting, though the government denies this. Related article: Key dates in Sri Lanka's recent past

Rajapakse has ruled Sri Lanka since 2005. His three brothers and other family members are in key government positions including the ministries of defence and ports.

- AFP