Polling at yesterday’s local elections to the Jaffna Municipal Council hit a new low with a pathetic 18.27% voter turnout, while the Vavuniya district generated relatively more enthusiasm amongst voters with a 49.4% turnout when polling closed at 4 pm.

The voting pattern of 6000 displaced votes spread over 15 Polling Stations outside Jaffna was not immediately known, but election officials admitted that a big swing cannot be expected even if the bulk of the displaced had cast their ballot.

In the Uva Provincial Council poll, Badulla district recorded the highest voter turnout with 64% followed by Moneragala at 60%.

Polling was relatively free and fair with no major incidents reported from the four districts the election was conducted, election and police officials said.

"The poll ended on a peaceful note", they said.

This was the first time in the country’s political that Local elections to Jaffna MC and Vavuniya UC and Provincial elections to the Uva Province were held simultaneously.

Voting started at 7 am yesterday and concluded largely incident-free when compared with polls in the past, political analysts said yesterday .

Convener of the National Polls Observation Center Prasanna Adikari said that 24 incidents of elections violence were reported in the run up to the Jaffna MC, Vavuniya UC and Uva Provincial council polls.

He said that while 22 of the 24 incidents were of a minor nature, the two other were an altercation between EPDP Leader Minister Douglas Devananda and TULF Leader V. Ananda Sangari in Jaffna an incident of shooting and assault in Bibile. However, nobody was killed or injured.

He said that their observations were that when one compared the seven PC elections held recently, starting with the Eastern Provincial elections yesterday’s poll recorded the least number of incidents of a violent nature.

Adikari said there were no complaints of threats, intidimation, harassment, assault or shooting recorded.

Additional Commissioner of Elections (Local and Provincial) W. P. Sumanasiri said that the counting of postal votes would commence soon after all the ballot boxes reached the respective counting centers. 335 persons were eligible to cast Postal Votes for Jaffna MC , 183 persons for the Vavuniya UC, 16,059 persons for the Badulla district and 8,897 for the Moneragala district.

He said as soon as the postal votes were counted the first result could be announced around midnight yesterday.

ITAK MP for the Vanni district Sivashakthi Ananthan said that in an unexpected turn of events the voters in Vavuniya turned out in large numbers showing much enthusiasm.

The Assistant Commissioner of Elections for the Jaffna District P. Kuhanathan said that there were 100,417 registered voters within the Jaffna MC of which 6000 were displaced voters. Those in Jaffna cast their votes at 70 Polling Stations in support of four Political parties the UNP, UPFA, TULF and the ITAK for 23 members to enter Jaffna MC along with the two bonus seats.

The Assistant Commissioner of Elections for the Vavuniya District A. S. Karunanidhi said there were 24,626 registered voters within the Vavuniya UC area were to cast their votes at 18 Polling Stations in support of five Political Parties the ITAK, UPFA, DPLF, SLPF and the SLMC for 11 members to be elected to Vavuniya UC along with the bonus seats.

The District Secretary (GA) for Badulla Rohana Keerthi Dissanayake said that there were 577,814 registered voters in the Badulla District and they were to cast their votes in support of 14 Political Parties and four Independent Groups at 507 Polling stations for 21 members to be elected from the Badulla district to the Uva Provincial Council.

The District Secretary (GA) for Moneragala J. J. Ratnasiri said that there were 300,642 registered voters within the district and they were to cast their votes at 307 Polling Stations in support of nine Political Parties and three Independent Groups to elect 11 members from the Moneragala district to the Uva PC.