''All nomination papers received today are in order,'' Dissanayake said. ''I appeal to everybody to conduct the election peacefully.''
Diplomats and analysts view only two of the candidates as serious contenders -- Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, running under the ticket of the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance, and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the candidate of the rightwing United National Party.
Outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga, leader of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party, which dominates the UPFA coalition that defeated Wickremesinghe's UNP at last year's parliamentary elections, will not be able to stand again as the Constitution only allows two terms in office.
There were no Tamil or Muslim candidates representing the country's main ethnic and religious minorities. All runners are from the majority Sinhalese community.
But Wickremesinghe has sewn up support from Tamil and Muslim political parties who believe he would be better able than his rival to advance the ongoing peace process aimed at ending three decades of war between the Sinhalese-dominated government and rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Rajapakse banks on agreements he has signed with the Marxist People's Liberation Front, or JVP, and a Buddhist monk's party, the JHU, to power him to victory.
But these arrangements with groups regarded as extremist Sinhalese will cost him minority votes, analysts say. They were made in the teeth of opposition by Kumaratunga after she endorsed him as the SLFP's presidential candidate.
''As of now, it looks close,'' an Asian diplomat said on condition of anonymity. ''But things can change in the course of the campaign.''
Rajapakse has good relations with the JVP, which earlier this year withdrew from the UPFA government in opposition to Kumaratunga's tsunami aid sharing deal, which it said legitimized the ''terrorist LTTE'' and gave it control of rehabilitation work in rebel-held areas in the country's north and northeast. ''Their problems were with President Chandrika Kumaratunga and not Rajapakse,'' the diplomat said. ''Obviously, the president is very unhappy with the deals he has made with groups regarded as extremist and whether she will wholeheartedly support her prime minister's election campaign remains to be seen.''
Kumaratunga has been publicly critical of Rajapakse's electoral arrangements and continues to rap the JVP in speeches. Newspapers regularly publish stories of differences between the president and prime minister.
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