Sri Lanka political parties preparing for another round of local elections

Political parties in Sri Lanka are busy preparing nominations lists for another round of elections to be held in October to elect 23 local government bodies including the Colombo Municipal Council.

Nominations for the elections in 17 key municipal councils, one urban council and five Pradeshiya Sabhas opened on August 18 and will continue till August 25.

Ruling party United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) will finalize its nomination lists by Monday (22) General Secretary of the UPFA, Minister Susil Premajayantha said.

The SLFP Nomination Board chaired by Ministers W. D. J. Seneviratne and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa is in the process of finalizing some of the council lists by Sunday.

The major Muslim party of the country and the ruling party ally, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) has decided today to contest five local government bodies separately and five others under the UPFA.

SLMC General Secretary Hassan Ali told ColomboPage that the party has decided to contest the Colombo, Kalmunai, Galle, Kandy and Negombo Municipal Councils separately.

Ali said the party decided to contest five municipal councils including the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) separately as the SLMC had the advantage of sending more members to the councils.

According to Hassan Ali, the SLMC has already conducted interviews to prepare the nominations lists and the lists are to be finalized on Monday (22).

Meanwhile, the main opposition United National Party (UNP) has decided to submit nominations on August 24 and 25.

All municipal councils in major cities including Colombo, Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia, Gampaha, Negombo, Kandy, Galle, Matara, Hambanthota, Kurunegala, Matale, Badulla, Anuradhapura and Ratnapura are to hold polls.

The elections in October would conclude the local government elections that were held in three stages commencing in March this year.

Sri Lanka held elections for 234 of the 335 local authorities in the country on March 17 this year and the ruling party UPFA won 205 of the councils.

Elections were held on July 23 for 65 local councils including 26 in the Northern Province. The ruling party won 45 of the local government bodies while the major Tamil party secured victory in the North.

Elections for the localities that were not held in March due to the hosting of Cricket World Cup would be held in October.