COLOMBO, Sept 21 (AFP): Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse suffered a political blow Sunday when his ruling party's popularity dropped in a local election seen as a gauge for snap presidential polls.
Although Rajapakse's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won the election in the island's southeastern province, its popularity plummeted by up to 22.98 per centage points from the last polls there in 2009, results showed.
The UPFA secured 19 out of the 34 seats in the election for the Uva provincial council held on Saturday, winning 48.79 per cent of the overall vote, according to results released by the Department of Elections.
The main opposition, the United National Party, almost doubled its vote in the district while the Marxist JVP or People's Liberation Front also made gains.
The election was seen as a crucial test of whether Rajapakse has enough support to call snap presidential polls for January, when candidates need more than 50 per cent of the vote to win.
Political analyst Victor Ivan said the results were a setback for Rajapakse, who personally campaigned in Uva to shore up his party's vote-only to oversee its worst decline since he came to power in 2005.
The province, which includes the tea-growing district of Badulla and sugar-growing area of Moneragala, was previously considered a UPFA stronghold, led by the president's nephew Shasheendra Rajapakse.
"This is a personal setback for the president," Ivan told AFP. "He will have to go for radical reforms to correct course or he will increasingly become irrelevant."
Ivan, as well as other newspaper columnists, had speculated that Rajapakse would attempt re-election for a third term in early 2015, by coming off the back of a strong win in Uva.
In previous local polls Rajapakse, who has consolidated his power since 2005, has taken advantage of his popularity among the Sinhalese majority for crushing Tamil rebels and ending the 37-year-long separatist war in 2009.
"People were grateful to him for the war victory and gave him another term (in 2010), but you can't take that gratitude for granted," Ivan said. "He can no longer capitalise on the military success."
Rajapakse has stared down international allegations of war crimes, including that his troops killed up to 40,000 ethnic minority Tamil civilians in the final stages of the conflict.
Colombo is under international pressure to cooperate with a UN-mandated probe into the allegations, which Rajapakse denies.
Just before Saturday's election, Rajapakse slashed electricity tariffs nationally by 25 per cent, reduced fuel prices by three per cent and secured investments from Japan and China that he says promises more jobs and prosperity.
But worryingly for his UPFA, the party won 47.37 per cent of the vote in Badulla compared with 67.79 per cent in 2009. In Moneragala, where it commanded 81.32 per cent in 2009, the party won just 58.34 per cent this time.
Presidential elections are due in November 2016, but Rajapakse has the power to call them at any time.
Saturday's election came after two similar polls elsewhere in March where the UPFA saw declines of 10 to 12 per cent.
There was no official comment Sunday from the ruling party or the main opposition. More detailed results are expected in the coming days.
