Earlier elections in Vavunia

Sri Lanka says local elections will be held in less than three months in two key parts of the north. The municipal elections will be held in Vavunia and Jaffna.

This will be the first democratic exercise since the government announced the end of the long-running war with its victory over the Tamil Tigers a week ago.

These will be the first local elections in these towns for more than a decade. “People want to select their own members and we want to give them that support,” the minister of local government, Janaka Bandara Tennakoon, told the BBC.

before August

The director of government information, Anusha Palpita, said they were scheduled to be held by August the 8th at the latest and described it as the first step to establish democracy in the north after the war.

Much of the north was at war for nearly three decades. Although the last presidential and parliamentary elections, four and five years ago, did include the north, turnout was low as the Tamil Tigers called a boycott.

Jaffna and, especially, Vavuniya are home to large numbers of Tamil refugees displaced by the war, but the camps where they live are not within the voting areas, Mr Tennakoon said.

Only for people already in town

When asked if the Muslims chased out by the Tamil Tigers in 1990 would be resettled before the elections, the minister said, "the attempt is to exercise democracy with the people who are alraedy in the towns."

The minister also said that there are no immediate plans to clear the High Security Zones in Jaffna municipal area to allow the evacuated people to return.

No date has yet been set for elections at the provincial level in the north, which last took place in 1988.

The government is promising to devolve as many powers as possible to the provinces as part of what it says is a programme to meet more of the aspirations of the Tamil minority.