Colombo, June 25: Sri Lanka on Aug. 8 will hold elections for the first time since declaring victory over the Tamil Tigers last month, the government said on Thursday.
The local government polls will take place in Jaffna and Vavuniya, two cities that were at the periphery of the territory controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for most of the 25-year separatist war.
The upcoming elections are aimed at entrenching a civilian administration in an area wracked by war for decades.
Both municipalities last held elections 11 years ago, and the election date will coincide with a provincial-level poll in the southern province of Uva, the Elections Department said.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance coalition has won all six of the provincial polls held since May 2008, which were seen as a test of support for his war effort and possible early presidential polls.
Besides Uva, only two more provinces have not voted, Rajapaksa’s native Southern Province and the Northern province which was almost entirely controlled by the LTTE.
Sri Lanka on May 18 declared victory over the LTTE, and later said founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran was killed.
That effectively ended the LTTE’s struggle to create a separate state for minority Tamils, which began in the 1970s and erupted into civil war in 1983.
Local government elections are held every four years while Provincial council elections are held every five years, but elections in the north and east have been repeatedly postponed because of continued fighting since 1998
—Agencies