The Election Commission has announced that elections will be held on March 9 for 340 local councils in Sri Lanka.
It was postponed for 6 months due to the growing economic and political crisis in the country.
The opposition parties insisted that the local council elections should be held to express the dissatisfaction of the people with the Sri Lankan government’s handling of the economic crisis.
However, the government had stated that the economic crisis would further worsen as it would cost Sri Lankan Rupees 1000 crores to conduct the lottery.
In this case, the election commission announced on Saturday that the local council election will be held on March 9.
In the previous local council polls held in 2018, the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna Party won most of the seats.
Last July, people gathered and protested against Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was the leader and president of the party, and removed him from power. The people of the country were deeply dissatisfied with the Rajput family and could not get the support of other parties. In the end, Mahinda Rajapaksa MPs supported a single MP, Ranil Wickramasinghe, to become the president.
The Samagi Jana Palavikaya Party, the main opposition party, believes that it can win more seats in the local council polls as there is opposition among the people to the ruling party.
A case has been filed in the Supreme Court that this local council election should not be held.