Low turnout in Sri Lanka polls

Low turnout in Sri Lanka polls

2011-03-17 21:53:58 GMT+7 (ICT)

COLOMBO (BNO NEWS) -- Sri Lanka election officials estimated that voter turnout for the local government polls that concluded on Thursday was approximately 55 percent, the Colombo Page reported.

More than 9.4 million people were elegible to cast their vote in 7,396 polling centers to elect members for 234 of 335 local authorities in the country. The voter turnout was considerably lower than the turnout at the presidential and parliamentary polls held last year.

Over 70,000 police and Army personnel were deployed to provide security for the voters at the polling stations. For the most part the polling was peaceful except for few minor incidents, according to the election monitors.

In one incident a hand grenade was thrown into a polling station injuring a police officer who was on duty at the polling booth. While one person was killed and two others were injured when a fight ensued between two groups.

"There was no major disruption of the polling process due to these incidents," police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said.

Election monitoring groups, however, said they had received over 100 complaints including allegations of intimidation, impersonation, chasing away voters from polling booths and the violation of election laws, the newspaper reported.

The local elections were seen as a test for President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who won re-election in January last year. Rajapaksa's United People's Freedom Alliance vowed to step up development efforts needed after government troops defeated the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels in 2009, ending a long ethnic war.

The voting took place from 7.00 am to 4.00 pm local time. The results are expected to be released Friday.

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