Colombo, October 5, 2012
PTI
The war-affected ethnic Tamils would be able to elect their first
Provincial Council of the northern region by September next year when the Sri
Lankan government holds the first ever local polls.
The government’s plan to hold the first elections at the provincial
level post-war is seen as a first step towards achieving a political solution
to the ethnic Tamil question.
Though people in the northern province voted both in 2009 Presidential
and the general elections next year, the Northern Provincial Council has not
yet been constituted even three years after the end of the decades-old war with
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Sri Lanka’s powerful Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who
is also the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, attributed the delay in
holding elections to the continuing process of resettlement of displaced people
in the northern region, the worst—affected in the war.
“We are in the process of preparing the electoral rolls of people in the
northern region. The process is expected to be completed by June, 2013. After
that we plan to hold elections by September next year,” he told visiting Indian
journalists here. People in the northern region have been looking forward to
the elections to the Northern Provincial Council and even India has been
pushing Sri Lanka to conduct elections.PTI
