Sri Lanka ruling coalition wins first post-war polls
Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition and an ethnic Tamil party seen as a front for the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels won the first post-war elections, held near the island’s former battlefields.
State television said President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling coalition captured Jaffna town council, securing 13 of the 23 seats, while the pro-rebel Tamil National Alliance came second with eight seats. The pro-rebel party won the Vavuniya town council, taking five of the 11 seats, while the ruling party won two seats.
The victory in Jaffna, the heartland of the country’s ethnic minority Tamils and birthplace of militancy, will give the government a chance to claim it as an endorsement of its handling of ethnic relations, post-war rehabilitation and a rejection of separatism.
