2008 Sri Lanka Eastern Provincial Council election

2008 Sri Lanka Eastern Provincial Council elections

10 May 2008 2012 →
elected members →
All 37 seats to the Eastern Provincial Council
Turnout	65.78%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Mahinda Rajapakse Ranil Wickramasinghe Somawansa Amarasinghe Party UPFA UNP JVP Seats won 20 15 1 Popular vote 308,886 250,732 9,390 Percentage 52.21% 42.38% 1.59%
Chief Minister before election post vacant Elected Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan UPFA-TMVP

The Sri Lanka Eastern Provincial Council elections, 2008 was held on May 10, 2008 to elect members to Sri Lanka’s Eastern Provincial Council. Following the successful completion of local government elections in the Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka’s Elections Department announced on March 14 that the elections for the Eastern Provincial Council were to be held in May, after a lapse of 20 years.^[1] It was only the second time direct elections are held to select members for the council, and first time for the Eastern Provincial Council alone, after it was separated from the North-Eastern Provincial Council in 2006.

Nominations for contesting in the elections were accepted from March 27 to April 3, and a total of 1342 candidates from 18 political parties and 56 independent groups contested the elections where over 980,000 people were eligible to vote.^[2][3] Both of Sri Lanka’s major political parties, the opposition United National Party and the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance took part in the election in coalitions with a number of other parties, but under their own names.

According to the official results released by the Elections Department, the ruling UPFA were victorious in the election, winning 20 seats, while the opposition UNP won 15 seats. Two smaller parties, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Tamil Democratic National Alliance also won 1 seat each.^[4]