Sri Lankans are voting in a provincial assembly election seen as a test of whether minority ethnic Tamils still want self-rule or are content with the government’s development of an area devastated by a quarter-century civil war. By noon on Saturday, voters had turned out in small numbers at polling booths in Batticaloa district, one of Eastern Province’s three districts. Voters will elect 35 members to the Eastern Provincial Council. The country’s main Tamil political party, which is seeking to control a Sri Lankan provincial assembly for the first time, hopes a victory will be seen internationally as a mandate for more power-sharing in ethnic Tamil-majority provinces. The Sinhalese-controlled government, meanwhile, is seen as being out to prove that Tamils are content with the post-war development.
