Sri Lanka announces new date to hold local elections

COLOMBO, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Election Commission announced on Tuesday that April 25 is the suitable date to hold local council elections.

The commission also informed regional election officials that the local elections cannot be held on March 9 as scheduled due to unexpected and unavoidable reasons.

The regional election officials were told that they are to gazette April 25 as the election day.

Regional election officials published gazettes earlier this year, announcing that local elections would be held on March 9. However, the elections were delayed after the government said there were inadequate funds.

Sri Lanka holds elections for local government bodies once every four years, and the postponed local elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2022.