By Skandha Gunasekara The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) secured a comfortable victory at the Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabha (PS) election on Friday (11), winning 17 seats in the local government body. The SLPP obtained 23,372 votes for their 17 seats. The United National Party (UNP) came in second, polling 10,113 votes giving them seven seats in the council. Meanwhile, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) emerged third by securing three seats through 5,273 votes while the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) managed to secure two seats with 2,435 votes. Five recognised political parties fielded 155 candidates seeking to occupy the 29 seats in the PS. Over 50,000 voters were registered to vote at Friday’s Elpitiya local government election. Voting at 47 polling stations commenced at 7 a.m. and concluded at 4 p.m. Five political parties, namely the UPFA, UNP, JVP, Democratic United National Front (DUNF), and SLPP contested the election for 29 seats in 17 wards of the Elpitiya local government council. Election Secretariat Director General Saman Sri Rathnayake told The Sunday Morning that the election was held in a fair and peaceful manner. “As expected, the election was held in a free and fair manner. There was absolutely no violence during the election,” Rathnayake said. In the run-up to the Elpitiya election, there were very few cases of election violence with a single instance standing out where a contestant of the election had attempted to take a group of 60-odd individuals on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Anuradhapura. However, following complaints made to the election complaints unit at the Elections Secretariat, officials of the Election Commission (EC) put a stop to the pilgrimage. “We stopped the pilgrimage as they arrived in Anuradhapura. They were returned home,” Ratnayake said. Peaceful election Election monitoring group, the Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFE) too remarked that the Elpitiya polls had been devoid of violence or violations. CaFFE Executive Director Ahmed Manas Makeen, while acknowledging the peaceful nature of the election, praised the high voter turnout. “We were able to observe a peaceful election from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. There was a promising voter turnout. This shows that the people are keen on casting their vote to choose their representatives,” Makeen told The Sunday Morning. The CaFFE had deployed 25 election observers to monitorthe local council election. Makeen said that there were a very minute number of election law violations. “There were a few posters put up and some leaflets thrown around, but that is all,” Makeen said, adding that the local police had been notified of the violations. The Elipitiya PS elections were suspended from being held, along with the other elections too, during the 2018 local government election held on 10 February. The suspension was due to the DUNF nominations list being rejected in December 2017. Subsequently, the DUNF lodged a petition alleging that this was an injustice. On 30 January 2018, the Supreme Court issued an interim injunction preventing elections from being held for the Elpitiya PS, after considering the petition filed by the DUNF. In a surprise result, the SLPP, led by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa and the “Joint Opposition”, came in first by winning 40% of the votes and securing the most number of seats. The United National Front (UNF), led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP, came in second with 29% of the votes, whilst the UPFA, led by President Maithripala Sirisena and the SL FP, came in third with 12% of the votes. On 30 August 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the EC to hold the elections of the Elpitiya PS after accepting nominations by the DUNF.