The campaigning is now officially over in Sri Lanka. Election regulations stipulate a so-called quiet time before Tuesday's election in which voters can ponder their choice free of political distraction.
But in this supposed period of silence, the debate continues to be intense. The election has caught the imagination of the country’s people like few have before.
There is a discernible excitement; and an apparent national awareness that the race is too close to call.
It wouldn’t have appeared to be that way when the election was called on the 23rd November last year. At the time, President Mahinda Rajapaksa was effectively running in a one-horse race. The war that had lasted nearly three decades was over and he was riding a surge of popular support as a result.
![[QODLink]](http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2012/2/13/20122131780495734_16.jpg "Suppressing the narrative in Bahrain")
