The United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won the first ever Provincial Council Election in the East, securing 20 (18+02 bonus seats) out of 37 seats on offer, while polling 52.21 per cent of the total votes.

The United National Party (UNP) which obtained 42.38 per cent of the total valid votes got 15 seats while the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Tamil Democratic National Alliance secured one slot each.

The UPFA won two out of the three districts, - Batticaloa and Ampara while the Trincomalee district was won by the UNP.

A total number of 591,676 (65.78 per cent) voters had exercised their franchise out of a total of 982,721. However in comparison to other elections the number of rejected votes was quite high with 54,780 (8.47 per cent) getting annulled.

Out of 10 polling divisions in the East, the UPFA took the upper hand in seven (Batticaloa, Kalkudah, Padirippu, Ampara, Sammanthurai, Pottuvil and Seruwila while the UNP won three (Muttur, Trincomalee and Kalmunai).

In the Batticaloa district the UPFA (105,341), secured six out of the 11 seats available, with a lead of 46,739 votes over its closest rival the UNP (58,602), which got four seats while the TDNA won one seat polling 7,714 votes.

In Batticaloa all three polling divisions were won by the UPFA, namely Batticaloa, Kalkudah and Padiruppu, where the total voter turnout reached 61.17 per cent.

In a close contest the UNP (70,858) edged out UPFA (59,298) in the Trincomalee district where it won five seats against the four won by the UPFA. The JVP which polled 4,266 secured one seat.

In Ampara the UPFA won with a majority of 22,975 votes securing eight seats while the UNP got six. Also the UPFA won three out of the four polling divisions with the UNP winning Kalmunai.

There was a turnout of more than 60 per cent of voters at yesterday’s poll that was held under free and fair conditions, according to elections authorities, polls observers and most of the media.

The UPFA led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) contested in alliance with the Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TVMP – Tamil People’s Liberation Tigers) which is the breakaway group from the LTTE, representing Tamil of the Eastern Province, which has abandoned terrorism and accepted the democratic process.

In elections of the local government bodies of the Eastern Batticaloa District in March this year, the TVMP fared well in all local bodies it contested, winning a majority in the Batticaloa Municipal Council that now has a mayor from the TVMP.

The Opposition United National Party (UNP) led by Ranil Wickremesinghe contested the Eastern Provincial election in alliance with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress.

This is the first time an election for a provincial council to the Eastern Province was held. It followed the de-merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces in 1996 on an order by the Supreme Court, which held that the temporary merger of the two provinces since 1987 was illegal. The Security Forces later liberated the entire Eastern Province from the control of the LTTE in 1997, dealing major blow to LTTE.