Sri Lankans voted on Saturday in local elections seen as a test of the three-month-old government's popularity, which analysts hope could provide fresh impetus to restart stalled peace talks with Tamil rebels.
The vote comes just days after a suicide bomb attack in the capital strained a cease-fire agreement between the government and Tamil Tigers, but police said they deployed about 50,000 officers to oversee the poll, which had so far been peaceful.
The island has been on election footing for most of the year, since President Chandrika Kumaratunga called a snap poll that saw her United People's Freedom Alliance coalition elected in early April, and voter turnout was expected to be low.
"There is apparently a significant amount of apathy," Colombo mayor Prasana Gunawardene told reporters as he cast his ballot.
But analysts say after Saturday's election - in which more than 4,000 candidates are competing for 316 provincial council seats - the government may shift away from some of its more populist policies.
They say it may turn its focus to making progress on the two main issues facing the country - the economy and efforts to end the 21-year civil war.
"The president might try to resume the negotiation process by softening the position a little bit," Jayadeva Uyangoda, head of political science at Colombo University, told Reuters.
Direct talks stalled in April last year and the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been unable to agree on an agenda for renewed negotiations, though both sides say they remain committed to the Norwegian-brokered cease-fire.
Analysts say the suicide blast, which killed four police officers and the bomber, underscores the importance of resuming talks to end the war over a separate state for minority Tamils that has killed 64,000 since it began in 1983.
But others say the violence could strengthen the hard-line Sinhalese nationalist elements of the Freedom Alliance, who oppose concessions to the Tigers.
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