Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa said elections will be held for a provincial council in the east in the first stage of a power-sharing plan aimed at settling the issue of Tamil separatism.
The elections for the Eastern Provincial Council are a key part of the ``search for an end to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka,'' the government said in a statement on its Web site yesterday. More than 70,000 people have been killed in 25 years of fighting.
Voters chose members of local councils in the district of Batticaloa in the east two days ago in the first ballot in 14 years. A pro-government breakaway faction of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam won control of eight bodies.
Sri Lanka's army captured the eastern region in July, inflicting the heaviest defeat on the LTTE in its fight for a separate homeland. The Tamil Tigers hold bases only in the north where the government plans to establish a similar provincial council giving some powers to Tamils.
The ballot demonstrated that the government will restore democracy to areas formerly held by the rebels, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said yesterday, according to a government statement.
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