The governing United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) has secured a comfortable win at the second phase of the Local Government Election 2011 wining a total of 45 LG bodies out of 65 bodies.
Illankai Thamil Arusu Katchchi or known as TNA won 18 bodies, while TULF won the power of two LG bodies. United National Party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress failed to secure the power of a single LG body.
Accordingly, the UPFA secured a total of 512 seats, 183 seats for ITAK, UNP-137 seats, JVP-13 and 12 seats for TULF.
The Local Government polls for 65 institutions was held yesterday and according to independent election monitoring bodies that a voter turnout of over 50% was recorded at at the polls.
On March 17, this year elections were held for 234 of the 335 local authorities in the country and the ruling party UPFA won 205 of the councils.
Elections for 34 localities were not held in March due to the hosting of Cricket World Cup and elections for another 65 councils were postponed due to legal challenges against rejection of nominations.
Elections for two more local government institutes in the Mullaitivu district were not held yesterday as the demining operations were still in progress.Voters in the North voted the polls yesterday for the first time since the defeat of the LTTE.
DM