(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Hirunika premachandra the daughter of slain parliamentarian bharatha lakshman premachandra clinched the most number of votes in capital colombo at the provincial council elections held on saturday
The 26-year-old former model contested under the ruling united people’s freedom party (upfa) and topped the voting list with 139034 preferential votes.
Hirunika beat udaya gammanpilla of the jathika hela urumiya — a secular sinhala nationalistic political party — member who was also a candidate of the ruling party. after a dispute between the two camps regarding the vote count a recount of the votes of premachandra and gammanpilla was conducted on saturday night.
A law student premachandra entered politics after her father and two of his bodyguards were killed during a shootout with another politician duminda silva backing rival candidates at the local polls in 2011.
During her election campaign she promised to “start where my father stopped.”
Lankan politics has seen its share of women since sirimavo bandaranaike was voted the world’s first woman prime minister in 1960.
Lanka’s ruling party won the western and southern provincial councils elections on saturday but by just a small margin in contrast to previous years.
The western and southern regions account for more than one third of the country’s population and are predominantly sinhalese.
The provincial council elections that comes two years before the next presidential elections is considered a crucial one for president mahinda rajapaksa who was elected president twice before.
The ruling party secured 33 of the 55 seats in the southern province down from 38 at the 2009 poll with three opposition parties winning the rest.
In the western province the president’s party won only 56 of the 104 compared to the 68 seats it won last time.
The main opposition united national party also suffered at this year’s elections winning only southern galle outside colombo and got 14 seats.
Former army commander and presidential candidate sarath fonseka’s democratic party and the marxist janatha vimukthi peramuna received more votes than expected and obtained three and five seats respectively.
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