Landslide victory for ruling party

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 January 1999, 10:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka's ruling People's Alliance (PA) won the elections to the Northwestern provincial council elections by a significant margin. The voting at nine polling booths in the province was canceled by the Commissioner of Elections on account of rigging and violence.

As the total votes polled at these booths yesterday amounting to approximately 47000 was not deemed by the Commissioner large enough to effect the overall outcome of the elections, it was decided to announce the final results said officials.

According to the announcement by the Commissioner of Elections this afternoon, the PA secured 30 seats to the council and the main opposition party, the UNP won 19. The left wing revolutionary party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) got 3 seats.

The PA polled 405431 votes in the district of Kurunagala securing 20 seats there and 160722 votes in the Puttalam district winning 8 seats. It got the two bonus seats as well. (The northwestern Province comprises the Puttalam and Kurunagala districts).

The UNP got 273892 votes in Kurunagala winning 13 seats and 105,876 in Puttalam for which it got 8 seats. The JVP scored 31221 votes in Kurunagala securing 2 seats and 10759 in Puttalam for which it got one seat.