Defeated Sri Lankan presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka, now in military custody, has filed a petition against what he alleges is vote rigging in last month's poll, his lawyers and opposition figures said on Tuesday. Fonseka, a former army chief, lost by 1.8 million votes in the January 26 contest, after which he accused President Mahinda Rajapaksa of rigging the vote.
"We have filed the election petition on behalf of General Fonseka today," Ashoka Samararathne, an attorney representing Fonseka, told Reuters. "We are asking the election to be declared void or Sarath Fonseka to be declared elected because our position is that he won the election."