Colombo, Feb 10 (newsin.asia) – A crucial local government election ended peacefully in the island on Saturday as over 15 million voters turning up to caste their votes to elect members to Local Government bodies, election monitors said.
Election monitors said that at the end of polling, 15,760,867 voters had caste their votes throughout the country including the former war devastated north and east. Voting started at 7am local time and ended at 4pm.
President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former President Mahinda Rajapakse were among those who caste their votes early on Saturday.
Voting for the Local Government Elections is the first conducted by the newly-established independent Election Commission as well as the police under the Independent Police Commission.
It is also the first island-wide poll to be held since the coalition government of President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe took office in August 2015. The poll is considered an important test of the government’s reform agenda.
The government said that the services of 65,758 Police officers, 41,178 Special Task Force (STF) officers and 7,278 other officers were utilized for the Local Government elections.