The INDEPENDENT (UK): Tamil National Alliance triumphs in Sri Lanka polls. Victory gives party platform to campaign for autonomous federal state
[Sunday 22 September 2013 ] Sri Lanka’s main ethnic Tamil party won a convincing victory in the country’s northern provincial elections, according to results released on Sunday, in what has been seen as a resounding call for wider regional autonomy in areas ravaged by a quarter-century of civil war. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will form the first functioning provincial government in the northern Tamil heartland after securing 30 out of 38 seats in Saturday’s elections, Sri Lanka’s elections commission said. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s coalition won the rest of the seats. The win provides a platform for the TNA to campaign for an autonomous federal state, though the provincial council is largely a toothless body. The Tamils have fought unsuccessfully for self-rule for six decades, at first through a peaceful struggle and then the bloody civil war. The elections were seen by the international community as a test of reconciliation between the Tamils and the majority ethnic Sinhalese, who control Sri Lanka’s government and military.