JAFFNA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Voters in Sri Lanka thronged polling stations on Saturday in an election that threatens to rekindle animosity between the government and ethnic minority Tamils, four years after the military crushed separatists and ended a 26-year war. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government held the poll after facing international pressure to restore democracy. Defeat for the government would be largely symbolic. Long queues of patient voters formed at polling stations, most with a holy ash mark on their foreheads, a sign they had attended prayers at Hindu temples. Polling closed at 1030 GMT and local election monitors said a vehicle of a TNA candidate was reported to have been shot at in Kodikamam, 25 km from Jaffna town. Election officials said they received "plenty of complaints," including intimidation of voters. N. Achchuthan, the deputy election high commissioner for the northern province, told Reuters voter turnout was estimated at above 60 percent, or more than double the 23.3 percent of the last parliamentary election, held in April 2010. Turnout in the other four districts including the Tamil Tiger rebels' de facto capital, Kilinochchi, has been more than 60 percent. The Centre for Monitoring Election Violations (CMEV) said the house of a TNA polling agent was burnt and some voters were intimidated in Mullaitivu district, where thousands of Tamil people were said to have killed in May 2009. "Specific incidents where voters have been intimidated, allegedly by ruling party politicians and the military, have resulted in fear among voters in these locations," the Centre said. A foreign observer said polling went off well in polling centers in Jaffna. "But there have been many cases of intimidation reported outside the polling centers," the observer told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Many expect an overwhelming victory for the TNA, the former political proxy of the defeated rebels, who launched the war for a separate state to end what Tamil activists saw as systematic discrimination by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority. Rajapaksa has a majority of more than two-thirds in parliament and controls the eight other provinces. Reporting by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Clarence Fernandez