Lankan polls close, Tamil parties hold breath

AS Sri Lanka went to the polls on Wednesday to elect a new parliament, political parties representing Tamils, most of whom reside in the north, east and hill country regions, are awaiting the outcome with bated breath as the island nation witnesses a multi-cornered contest on a scale never seen before.

- PON VASANTH Express

This is compounded by the difficulty in assessing the magnitude of a popular wave the newly-elected president Anura Kumar Dissanayake seems to be riding even in areas dominated by ethnic minorities.

Leaders of almost all Tamil political parties that TNIE spoke to said this is the first election in which they have no idea what the results will be like. Even the public seems to be in a "state of confusion," as an elderly person in Jaffna put it.