Tamil Party wins in election landslide A Sri Lankan poll official unloads a ballot box from a bus at a counting centre in Jaffna. Sri Lanka's main Tamil party has dominated the first local elections to be held in the country's north since the end of a 30-year civil war. The Tamil National Alliance - whose key policy is autonomy for Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated north - won 30 out of 38 seats in the Northern Provincial Council elections. The coalition in power nationally, the United People's Freedom Alliance headed by President Mahinda Rajapakse, won seven seats, while a minority Muslim party won a single seat. Sixty-eight per cent of the 719,000 registered voters turned out to cast a ballot. The lead-up to the historic elections was marred by reports of voter intimidation and violence, but electoral officials said there were "no major incidents" during nine hours of voting on Saturday. On Friday, the home of Tamil National Alliance candidate Ananthi Sasitharan, who believes her husband - a former political officer for the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - is still being held by the government, was attacked by a gang of men armed with guns and wooden clubs. Ms Sasitharan escaped. She alleged that some of the attackers were wearing army uniforms. The government has denied any responsibility. The provincial council is a fairly toothless body. Mr Rajapakse has consolidated power to his administration in Colombo, but the man now expected to become the Northern Province's first elected chief minister, 73-year-old retired Supreme Court judge C.V. Wigneswaran, ran on a forthright manifesto of Tamil autonomy. It is illegal under Sri Lanka's constitution to promote a separate state for the country's Tamil minority. Mr Wigneswaran says he will push Colombo for "self-government" for Sri Lanka's Tamils, as well as for payment of war reparations, a withdrawal of troops from the north, and the return of land to Tamils lost during the civil war. The Central and North-Western provinces also held council elections on Saturday. These were dominated by the ruling UPFA. Sri Lanka's regional polls were watched closely as a test for the country's oft-criticised democracy.