Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday (30) vowed to bring in more female representation into the local government bodies before the next local government elections scheduled to be held in March.

Addressing the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Sri Lanka Department of Elections, in capital Colombo, Wickremesinghe said new reforms would be introduced by the government to include at least 20 percent females into the local government authorities.

"Although 51 percent of the country's population is female, I don't think even a dozen females are in parliament," Wickremesinghe said.

His remarks came after election observers from the European Union who had arrived in the island nation to observe the parliamentary elections last month said there was an extremely low number of female candidates participating in the parliamentary polls.

Local media reports, quoting observers, said even though the main parties adopted a gender policy in their election manifestos, including the promotion of women's development and social welfare, the parliamentary election had only 9 percent female representation with 556 out of 6,151 candidates.

Sri Lanka ranks 140 out of 153 countries in female representation in parliament.

The island's Women's Affairs Ministry, ahead of the August polls, had called on all political parties to allocate one third of their seats in the new parliament for women. The Ministry also urged the political parties to ensure that at least 30 percent of the candidates they nominate for the election are women.

(Xinhua)