By DPA,
Colombo : Sri Lanka is to rehold parliamentary elections Tuesday in two districts where irregularities marred polling on April 8 during the nationwide voting, officials said Monday.
The failure to complete the election has delayed the final results of the parliamentary elections though the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won a convincing majority in the preliminary results.
Fresh voting is to be held in Nawalapitiya, where a minister of the ruling party was allegedly involved in driving away election monitors from opposition parties.
Polls are also to be conducted in Trincomalee district, where government supporters allegedly grabbed ballots from a voting booth on April 8.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA has already received more than 60 percent of the vote with the opposition United National Party, led by former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, tallying about 30 percent.
Projections showed that the UPFA was likely to take at least 143 seats in the 225-seat Parliament, just short of the 150 needed for a two-thirds majority during the next six-year term.
Rajapaksa won a second six-year term in the January presidential election.