Sri Lanka's ruling coalition¹ has swept to victory in a provincial² poll that some commentators³ say will pave the way for an early presidential election.

斯里兰卡统治联盟在一场省级选举中获胜，评论家称这将为尽早进行总统选举铺平道路。

Rajapaksa, seen with his wife, is riding high from his defeat of the Tigers

The vote in the Southern Province, home of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, saw his coalition（结合，合并） take 68% of the vote.

The BBC correspondent in Colombo says Mr Rajapaksa was boosted by the recent victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels.

However, an election monitoring body said the campaign was the "worst ever" in terms of violations⁴ of the law.

The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections said there were hundreds of reports of violence and intimidation⁵（恐吓，威胁） in the run up to the vote.

Staggered polls

In an apparent move to build up an electoral head of steam（蒸气，精力）, the government has held staggered（错列的，叉排的） polls in eight provinces, the BBC's Charles Haviland reports from Colombo.

With this latest victory, Mr Rajapaksa's United People's Freedom Alliance has won all eight.

The opposition⁶ United National Party took a distant 25% of the southern vote and the Marxist-nationalist JVP, whose heartland used to be the south, won only 6%.

Only the formerly⁷ Tiger-ruled Northern Province, which is emerging from decades of war, has yet to vote.

Our correspondent says some believe the president will now call a snap presidential election - which he can do any time from next month - but he is reported to have said on voting day: "I have two more years in office."

A parliamentary election, however, must be held by April.