Sri Lankan provincial council elections, 2012

6th Sri Lankan provincial council election

← 2008/09 8 September 2012 2013 →
114 seats across 3 provincial councils
Turnout	64.10%
Majority party Minority party   Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa Ranil Wickremasinghe Party United People's Freedom Alliance United National Party Popular vote 1,027,310 557,885 Percentage 51.05% 27.72% Councillors 63 29 Councils 2 0
Winners of polling divisions. UPFA in blue, TNA in yellow and SLMC in green.

Provincial council elections were held in Sri Lanka on 8 September 2012 to elect 114 members to three of the nine provincial councils in the country. 3.3 million Sri Lankans were eligible to vote in the election. Elections for the Northern Provincial Council, which had been governed directly by the national government since it was demerged from the North Eastern Provincial Council in January 2007, are overdue but the government has not set a date. Elections to the remaining five provincial councils are not due till 2014 as they had their last election in 2009.

The United People's Freedom Alliance's domination of Sri Lankan elections continued as expected. It retained control of two provincial councils (North Central and Sabaragamuwa) but lost overall control in the other provincial council (Eastern), although it was the largest group.

In an attempt to end the Sri Lankan Civil War the Indo-Lanka Accord was signed on 29 July 1987. One of the requirements of the accord was that the Sri Lankan government to devolve powers to the provinces. Accordingly on 14 November 1987 the Sri Lankan Parliament passed the 13th Amendment to the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka and the Provincial Councils Act No 42 of 1987. On 3 February 1988 nine provincial councils were created by order. The first elections for provincial councils took place on 28 April 1988 in North Central, North Western, Sabaragamuwa, and Uva provinces. On 2 June 1988 elections were held for provincial councils for Central, Southern and Western provinces. The United National Party (UNP), which was in power nationally, won control of all seven provincial councils.