Colombo, April 20 (DPA) Voting began Tuesday in two districts of Sri Lanka where polls were cancelled due to irregularities during parliamentary elections held on April 8, officials said.
The re-vote is being held in the Central Nawalapitiya electorate and in the northeastern Trincomalee district.
In Nawalapitiya, a minister of the ruling party was allegedly involved in driving away election monitors of opposition parties in April, while in Trincomalee ruling party supporters had grabbed ballot papers.
Polling was scheduled to close at 4 p.m. (1030 GMT) Tuesday. Vote counting is due to be completed the same night, as it involves only 52,000 votes.
The failure to complete the election has delayed final results of parliamentary elections, although the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won a convincing victory of the provisional results announced so far.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA has already received over 60 percent of the vote. The opposition United National Party led by former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe trailed with around 30 percent of the vote.
The new cabinet of ministers including the prime minister is due to be sworn in after the results are announced. Inaugural parliamentary sessions will be held on Thursday.
