By DPA,
Colombo : Sri Lanka’s ruling party Friday recorded a landslide victory in local polls, further strengthening President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s grip on power.
The ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance, led by Rajapaksa, secured victories in 205 of the 234 councils for which elections were held Thursday.
The United People’s Freedom Alliance gained 55 percent of the vote against the United National Party’s 33 percent.
The United National Party, the main opposition, secured victories in only nine councils while a Tamil-minority party known as the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kachchi won 12 councils, mostly in Eastern Province. Minor parties won the other councils.
Local elections for 64 other councils were delayed because nomination papers have been challenged in the courts.
Elections for most of the councils in northern Sri Lanka, which saw heavy fighting as the civil war between separatist ethnic Tamil rebels and the government came to an end in 2009, were among those delayed because of the legal cases.
Rajapaksa, who won re-election in January last year and whose party secured a near-two-thirds majority in Parliament in April elections, had called on voters to give him another mandate to step up development work after the defeat of the rebels.