Well, at least in Brazil they have eletric start. My wife have one and we had a similar problem. Her XR200 had bad contac problems (is it right to say that in english?), meaning that some times you press the start button and nothing happens. The problem was solved revising the eletric system and using a specific spray to eliminate this bad contact.
You can try the following... remove the lateral plastic, take a screwdriver and do a direct link (conecting the two poles). Try some times and if the engine always start, probably the problem is in the start/stop button mechanism. If not, the problem shoul be in the engine starter.