People have spoken

Sri Lankans have spoken, and what they have said is being interpreted in different ways.

- 

That the ruling NPP would be the overall winner in Tuesday's local government (LG) polls was a foregone conclusion. Its stunning win in last year's general election, where it obtained 159 out of 225 seats in Parliament, was still fresh when the country went to the polls again. A decline in its vote share was also expected. The Opposition managed to recover lost ground to some extent, but it has a long way to go before it can make a decisive comeback.

JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva, addressing a press conference yesterday morning, sought to downplay the NPP's failure to prevent a drastic drop in its vote share during the past six months or so; he claimed that the local government polls were called 'village elections', where voters were swayed by various factors other than national issues.

That may be generally so, but the NPP made an otherwise grassroots level voting event assume the same importance as a national election, with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake himself leading its LG election campaign. The President and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya fervently appealed to the people to vote for the NPP in the LG elections and help consolidate its hold on power. The NPP polled 6.86 million votes (61.56%) in the last parliamentary election, but it could obtain only 4.5 million votes (43.2%) in Tuesday's LG polls.