Sri Lankan provincial council elections, 2008–09

5th Sri Lankan provincial council election

← 2004 10 May 2008, 23 August 2008, 14 February 2009 25 April 2009, 8 August 2009, 10 October 2009 2012 →
417 seats across 8 provincial councils
Turnout	65.84%
First party Second party   Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa Ranil Wickremasinghe Party United People's Freedom Alliance United National Party Popular vote 5,137,170 2,609,386 Percentage 63.10% 32.05% Councillors 269 131 Councils 8 0
Winners of polling divisions. UPFA in blue and UNP in green.

Sri Lanka has held several rounds of Provincial Council elections in 2008 and 2009 to elect members to eight of the country’s Provincial Councils. The decision to hold elections in different parts of the country on separate days was a break in the usual practice, which is to hold elections for the whole country on the same day. For each provincial council, members are elected to serve a five-year term. A chief minister for the province is chosen by the elected members.

The first election was held in May 2008 to elect members to Sri Lanka's Eastern Provincial Council. In August 2008, elections were held in the North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provinces. In 2009, elections were held for Central and North Western Provincial Councils in February, for the Western Provincial Council in April, for the Uva Provincial Council in August and for the Southern Provincial Council in October. No election was held for the ninth provincial council, Northern, which had been governed directly by the national government since it was demerged from the North Eastern Provincial Council in January 2007.

The elections were largely seen as a referendum on the handling of the civil war by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse. Rajapakse's United People's Freedom Alliance and its allies registered resounding victories over the opposition United National Party in all the elections.