Jaffna is still Sri Lanka's most militarised region. Photo AFP

Extracts from a Reuters report from Jaffna Saturday:

Tamils say President Mahinda Rajapaksa's post-war development and infrastructure projects in the former war zone in the island's north have yet to address their real concerns and have excluded their participation.

Voting in Jaffna, as it did in war time, will take place with a heavy military presence.

Tamils in Jaffna are reluctant to speak in public due to the presence of government intelligence officers and soldiers, and many Reuters approached gave a brusque "No comment."

"There were a number of elections like this and a change has never happened. I have little doubt that this is also going to be the same," says Thuvaraki Nakeswaran, 22, a journalism student.

"I will vote for those who think to help Tamils."

"There is a selfish motive behind the government's development programme and it's Sinhalisation that really has been taking place," a 59-year old man told Reuters on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal.

"All the jobs created through these projects are given to Sinhalese people. ... The government has never involved us in the development projects either through providing job opportunities or giving the contracts to Tamils here."

T. Hariharan, a 55-year-old farmer, complained that the development has not helped bring down the high cost of living or created jobs for the unemployed.

"Now some agricultural produce is brought here from the rest of the country despite being grown here. That has reduced our profit margins," he said.

From another Reuters report:

Citizens in Sri Lanka's old war zone voted for local leaders for the first time in at least a dozen years, in a poll marked by intimidation, vote-buying and skepticism by the mostly Tamil electorate of any kind of post-war political change.

In at least 20 villages, uniformed men offered 1,000 Sri Lanka rupees (5.61 pounds) for people to sell their voting cards, and beat those who refused, the Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFE) observer group said.

Elsewhere, government supporters handed out free food near polling stations, and men linked to a government proxy group threatened others to vote for the ruling party.