Southerners set to strengthen President’s hands

by Our political correspondent

The United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is set to create history and register a landslide victory at next Saturday’s Southern Provincial Council elections. Political observers said that the UPFA could obtain the highest ever percentage of votes polled by a political party in Sri Lanka’s election history. People in the Southern Province, the birthplace of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, are set to strengthen the hands of the President and the UPFA Government as a token of gratitude for liberating the country from the clutches of LTTE terror.

This is the first opportunity for people in the Southern Province to exercise their democratic rights after the country was liberated from terrorism, Political analysts predicted a remarkable victory for the UPFA.

The UPFA has shown a remarkable performance at all Provincial Council and Local Government elections in the recent past and at the last Uva Provincial Council elections the UPFA secured around 80 percent of the votes. Political analysts said this could be bettered at the SPC elections. They said that the SPC election would help the UPFA to broaden its Southern vote base further and on the other hand determine the political destinies of the main Opposition - the United National Party (UNP) and the fast-fading People’s Liberation Front (JVP). The Southern Province has been traditionally a UPFA stronghold and the UNP and JVP will face a poll which could determine the fate of the two Opposition parties.

Minister of Ports and Aviation Chamal Rajapaksa who endorsed this said the UPFA could well secure over 85 percent of the votes in the Hambantota district.

He predicted similar success to the UPFA in the Matara and Galle Districts too. According to reports from Matara, Galle and Hambantota, the masses have shown a keen interest in the SPC elections and indicated that the voter turnout could well be over 75 percent.

People in the three districts have been impressed with the massive development projects that are being implemented to bring the Southern Province on par with the Western Province. Apart from the development in the road network in the South, the Hambantota Port, Southern Expressway and the Mattala International Airport are amongst the other mega projects initiated under President Rajapaksa’s leadership, opening a new era in the South.

Weerasinghe said that the Railway Season Identity will not be accepted.

The Elections Department will deploy 29,000 officials for related elections activities. (14,000 - Galle, 9,000 - Matara and 6,000 - Hambantota district).

One-hundred-and-seventy-seven serious election related violence activities were reported from the date of nomination, according to Election Monitoring Officials.

The highest number of incidents were reported from the Hambantota district - 92 incidents, 45 were from Matara.

Forty incidents were also reported from the Galle district.