TULF loses in Trincomalee, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 October 2000, 08:36 GMT]
Tamils in Trincomalee lost representation in the Sri Lankan parliament for the first time since the island became independent in 1948. Despite decades of state backed Sinhala colonization aimed at altering the demographic complexion of this east coast district, Tamils still form the majority at 36.4 percent of the population. Nevertheless, no Tamil was elected to Parliament in this election.

The outspoken TULF MP, Mr.Joseph Pararajasingham, lost his seat in Batticaloa where the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress's election front, the National Unity Alliance (NUA) came close to beating the TULF by securing 53636 votes.

The TULF won three of the five seats in the Batticaloa electoral district in 1994 by winning seventy four thousand votes. This time it was able to obtain only 54,438 votes. The party got two seats because of the district's bonus seat which it obtained by a narrow margin of 802 votes more than NUA.

However, Mr. Pararajasingham lost his seat. The TULF polled the lowest number of votes in his electorate, Batticaloa - lower than the NUA and the UNP. (There are three electorate in Batticaloa electoral district - Kalkudah, Paddiruppu and Batticaloa)

The PA and UNP and NUA have got one seat each in the Batticaloa electoral district. There are 205,000 Tamil voters and 66,000 Muslim voters in the Batticaloa electoral district.

The People's Alliance won the Trincomalee electoral district by obtaining 53,802 votes. Three PA candidates were elected to Parliament. The UNP won one seat. The Tamil United Liberation Front failed to secure a seat by about 1500 votes.

Trincomalee electoral district
Parties	Votes	No. of seats
People's Alliance	53,802	03
United National Party	46,676	01
Tamil United Liberation Front	14,088
Eelam Peoples Democratic Party	4,524
All Ceylon Tamil Congress	3,748
Independent group 2 (Sooriyamoorthy)	2,621
Independent Group 3 (Pakkiyathurai)	1,434
Independent group 6 EPRLF led by Varatharajaperumal	872
TELO	498

The Tamil United Liberation Front blamed smaller Tamil groups that divided the Tamil vote in the district for the loss of Tamil representation from Trincomalee in the Sri Lankan Parliament.