Sri Lanka's main Tamil party sweeps key polls

Sri Lanka's main minority Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), swept to victory in provincial council elections held in the North after 25 years, official results showed on Sunday.

The party led by R. Sampanthan with former Supreme Court judge C.V Wigneswaran as the chief ministerial candidate, secured 30 of the 38 seats for the newly formed council while the ruling UPFA got 7 seats and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress 1 seat.

The elections were held in five districts in the North, most of which were under Tamil Tiger rebel control for nearly 30 years before the rebels were defeated in May 2009 in a bloody final war.

In the Jaffna district, TNA won 84.37 percent of the votes while the UPFA was a distant second with just 14.20 percent of the votes. A total of 273,821 people voted in the district.

In the former Tamil Tiger controlled Kilinochchi district, ITAK won 81.57 percent of the total votes while the UPFA managed just 17.37 percent of the votes, Xinhua reported.

Elsewhere in the North, ITAK won 62.22 percent of the votes in Mannar, 66.10 percent of the votes in Vavuniya and 78.56 percent of the votes in Mullaitivu.

The TNA contested the polls calling for self-determination in the North for the Tamils but stayed short of calling for a separate Tamil state which was the main demand of the rebels during the war.

The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa had, however, accused the TNA of creating communal discord through its election manifesto.

However, on Sunday the government hailed the peaceful conduct of the polls with government Minister Susil Premjayantha saying the polls gave the people in the North a chance to decide their future.