COLOMBO: Sri Lanka yesterday called snap local elections seen as a gauge of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s popularity ahead of national polls expected to be held later this year, officials said.
The southern and western provincial councils, the highest level of local government, have been dissolved, clearing the way for local elections almost a year before they were due, officials said.
“The election dates will be announced by the elections commissioner, but they are likely to be towards the end of March,” an official of Rajapaksa’s office said, asking not to be named. “This will be a crucial test for the president,” the official added.
Rajapaksa is expected to win the polls that will take place in the ethnic Sinhalese-majority heartland where he enjoys strong support for crushing Tamil rebels and ending Sri Lanka’s decades-long war in 2009. But Rajapaksa, who has maintained an iron grip on power since 2009, is hoping for a landslide victory, giving him enough momentum to call national elections, according to experts and local media.
Domestic media have speculated that Rajapaksa, who is in the fourth year of a six-year term, may call a snap presidential poll later in 2014 if voter support is still high and to capitalise on a splintered opposition.
The two local polls also come as the UN Human Rights Council is set to examine in March allegations that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final months of the separatist war.
AFP
