Only a handful of voters at cluster polling booths

Polling booths at Omanthai were built for thousands of Tamil voters, only 15 turned up to vote.

Election official P. Paskaran said 64 polling booths in this town saw only 15 voters cast ballots although 84,361 people in the region were eligible to vote.

"Not a single ballot has been cast in most of the booths," Paskaran told AFP inside a tin-roofed polling centre. Police chatted with election officials as they whiled away the nine-hour voting period that ended late afternoon.

Reports from LTTE-held areas said they burnt tyres on roads to discourage voting in at least two areas of the East.

LTTE leaders have dismissed the election, whose results are due Friday, as meaningless for the minority community but had stopped short of issuing a call for a boycott.

Wickremesinghe's hopes had been buoyed by media reports that the Tamils, who usually vote as one bloc, were leaning toward him. A failure by Tamil voters to turn out at the polling booths would favour the Prime Minister, analysts say.

Further north at Muhamalai, in the Jaffna peninsula, only one man crossed LTTE lines and entered the Government-held area to vote, a local official contacted by telephone said.

"We catered for 91,000 Tamil voters, but only one, yes only one, turned up to vote," the official said.

In Jaffna peninsula where security forces are in control, residents stayed indoors while shops and offices shut.

Officials here sent 75 buses to territory held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to allow civilians to cross the front line and vote here. But there was no sign of anyone riding the bus to vote.

The Tigers wield considerable influence over Tamils in territory under their control as well as in neighbouring areas held by Forces.