Sri Lankan Tamils Vote: PICS

The provincial council election is the first in 25 years in Sri Lanka's north, once the heartland of Tamil Tiger separatists...

Voters in Sri Lanka's north thronged polling stations on Saturday in an election that threatens to rekindle animosity between the government and ethnic minority Tamils, four years after the military crushed separatists and ended a 26-year war.

The provincial council election is the first in 25 years in the north, once the heartland of Tamil Tiger separatists. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government is holding the poll after facing international pressure to restore democracy.

Defeat for Rajapaksa's government would be largely symbolic. But victory for the main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), could reignite calls for autonomy.

Long queues of patient voters formed in the morning at polling stations. Most had a holy ash mark on their foreheads, a sign they had attended prayers at Hindu temples.

Many voters called for restitution of land, the departure of the national army, accused of human rights abuses in the final stages of the war, and some even for a separate state.

Many were clearly keen to elect their own local leaders - 38 provincial councillors - for the first time in three decades. But some candidates complained of intimidation and irregularities.

Rajipaksa has a majority of more than two-thirds in parliament and controls the eight other provinces. He appears determined to win in the north, where campaign posters for the ruling coalition plastered the walls.

The president has faced international pressure to bring to book those accused of war crimes committed at the end of the war, and to boost reconciliation efforts.

Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil woman shows her inked finger after voting at a polling station during the northern provincial council election on September 21, 2013 in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.