09/01/2011
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Himal Magazine
COMMENTARY: The last few years in Sri Lanka have been marked by numerous elections at various levels – presidential, parliamentary, provincial council and local government. The Mahinda Rajapakse regime won all these elections with landslide victories, and now controls all eight provincial councils, barring the Northern Provincial Council for which elections are yet to be held. Indeed, the regime seemed to have mastered the art of electoral politics, ensuring its legitimacy and overwhelming power at a time when the United National Party (UNP), the main opposition, is in shambles.