- JAFFNA, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s northern Tamil heartland is nervously calm as voters trickle to polling stations to elect local councils following the country’s long civil war.
Saturday’s election has assumed unprecedented national significance, with ethnic Tamil leaders saying a victory would be a mandate to press for self-rule in the South Asian island nation’s Tamil-majority north and east.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling party hopes a victory for itself would blunt calls for an international war crimes investigation over incidents in the final months of the 25-year civil war, which ended in May 2009.
Armed soldiers stood guard Saturday throughout Jaffna, the capital of Northern Province, and most shops were shut.