UPFA sweeps Western Province polls

The United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), the ruling coalition in Sri Lanka led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, retained control of the Western Provincial Council with a larger majority at the election to the Council held April 25.

The UPFA won a total of 68 seats in the 102 seat Provincial Council with the Opposition United National Party (UNP) coming a distant second with only 30 seats. The People's Liberation Front (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna - JVP) with a radical nationalist policy won just 03 seats and the sectarian Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) won 02 seats.

The United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party, fared badly in the largely urban areas of the country which is generally concerned its strongholds. It won in only 05 electoral districts in metropolitan Colombo city, but with reduced majorities. The UNP lost in all other electorates in the Colombo District, while the UPFA won all electoral districts in the Gampaha and Kalutara Districts. The 30 seats it won in the Provincial Council is due to the election that is conducted on the system of proportional representation.

The success of the UPFA in the populous Western Province, with a large percentage of minority votes, follows a trend of support for it in all polls to provincial councils held in the past months beginning with polls to the new Eastern Provincial Council in September 2008, after the liberation of the East from LTTE terror. This was followed by successes in the provincial elections in the North Central, mid-country Sabaragamuwa, Central Province and North Western Provinces.

Political observers are agreed in the view that the success of the polls is due largely to the personal popularity of President Mahinda Rajapaksa as a national leader, and to the of success his government in driving the separatist LTTE from the East, and later from all its strongholds in the North, including is administrative centre Kilinochchi, in January this year, until it is now on the verge of defeat, holed up in a tiny stretch of land in the North.

The was also much public support for the government and the President when several thousands of Tamil civilians defied the LTTE that was holding by force both a human shield against the advancing Sri Lankan forces and for purposes of political bargaining, and surged into Government held areas in the North from April 20, and are still coming in thousands.

President Rajapaksa has promised early local government elections in the northern city of Jaffna and later in other areas of the North, and has pledged to let the people of the North liberated from the LTTE to also elect their own provincial council when conditions are suitable for such an election, as it was done shortly after the liberation of the East, last year.

Courtesy : Presidential Media Unit