Rajapakse to declare open new parliament on April 22

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 April 2010, 17:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapakse is to officially declare open the first session of the seventh parliament Thursday (April 22) morning. The Secretary General of Sri Lanka's parliament, Dhammika Kitulgoda, has notified that the parliament will meet at 8:45 a.m. All newly elected members should be present at 8:30 a.m. The ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) has already won 117 seats in the 225-member Parliament, while the United National Front (UNF) led by the main opposition United National Party (UNP) obtained 46 seats, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) 12 seats and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led Democratic National Alliance (DNA) 5 seats. Twenty-nine members would be appointed through the National List on the votes each political party polled island wide.

The names of elected members of the twenty-two electoral districts will be gazetted by the Commissioner of Elections Wednesday after the results of the polling stations in Nawalapitiya in Kandy district in the central province and Kumpuruppiddi in the Trincomalee district in the eastern province have been officially announced.

The re-poll in 34 polling stations in Nawalapitiya and one polling station in Kumpuruppiddi village in Trincomalee district is to be held on April 20 on the orders of Commissioner of Elections.

Results in these polling stations were annulled due to election malpractices.

An official of the Elections Department said 50,948 registered electors in the Nawalapitiya electorate in the Kandy District and 977 voters in Kumpuruppiddi in the Trincomalee district would cast theirvotrd for a second time on April 20.