NCPC, SPC elections to be held on August 23

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 July 2008, 09:58 GMT]
Elections to the Sabragamuwa Provincial Council (SPC) and North Central provincial Council (NCPC) will be held on August 23, the Sri Lankan Commissioner of Elections Dayananda Dissanayake announced Friday at the closure of nominations. Meanwhile all major political parties, ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), main opposition United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which suffered a split some months ago have been contesting all the four districts in the two provinces.

The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) have been contesting separately only in the districts of Ratnapura and Kegalle in the election to the Sabragamuwa Provincial Council.

There are 713,205 eligible voters in Ratnapura district and 605,621 in Kegalle district. Among them about 30,000 are upcountry Tamil voters.

There are 569,398 eligible voters in Anuradhapura district and 277,056 in Polonnaruwa district.

The newly formed party Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (JNP) and registered by the Elections Commissioner as a recognized political party one day before the nomination closed did not contest the two PC elections.

JNP Secretary Nandana Gunatilake said his party decided not to contest the elections as there was no sufficient time to finalize nomination lists.