Wigneswaran to take oath as CM in Lankan Tamil north

The Chief Minister-elect of Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated northern province is to take oath on Monday after his party's emphatic victory in the historic provincial election last month.
C V Wigneswaran will be sworn in by President Mahinda Rajapaksa here on October 7, Tamil National Alliance's senior leader Suresh Premachandran said.
73-year-old Wigneswaran has been a magistrate and a judge of the District Court, High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.
"The TNA councillors would take oaths as members of the NPC in Jaffna on October 11", Premachandran said.
The decisions followed a meeting between the Sri Lankan President and the leader of the TNA, R Sampanthan held this morning.

The Tamil party leaders met Rajapaksa to discuss the swearing in of the new NPC councillors amid TNA's unhappiness over the prospect of being sworn in by the northern governor.

In the run upto the September 21 Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election the TNA had protested against northern governor's campaigning for the ruling party.
The governor G A Chandrasiri is a retired Major General who had functioned as the Commander of the government troops in Jaffna during the civil war against the LTTE.
The TNA in a letter of protest to Rajapaksa had urged action to end the military's involvement in the election.

The TNA swamped the first ever NPC election by winning 30 of the 38 seats in the council.
Their seeking a mandate for the north, based on the Tamil minority's demand for self-determination came under heavy criticism by the country's Sinhala Buddhist majority.