Sri Lanka, March 22 -- The much postponed Local Government (LG) Elections have now been fixed for May 6 - the first poll to be held under the new NPP-led Government. The last LG poll was held in February 2018 which saw the ruling coalition led by the Sirisena -Ranil combine being routed, eventually heralding election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the President a few months later. That election also changed the trend that hitherto prevailed where the ruling party,or coalition, always won the mini-elections held under their watch.

The acceptance of nominations for the 336 LG institutions which commenced on March17 was concluded at 12 noon on Thursday. A total of 17,296,330 voters have qualified to vote at the upcoming LG election. Although nomi...