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Polls Chief refutes “No election monitors from anti-Lankan Europe” quote | Right of Reply
View(s):Commissioner of Elections, Mahinda Deshapriya, commenting on our last week’s front-page report headlined ‘No election monitors from anti-Lankan Europe: Polls Chief’, claims the story is not true.
He says:
I requested for views and suggestions prior to the Party Secretaries’ meeting held at the Elections Secretariat on 12/07/2013, and some political parties suggested that Observers be invited from the Commonwealth, European Union and the United Nations, while certain political parties suggested that no observers be invited from the European Union, as well as from countries that voted against Sri Lanka….
At the meeting with the media, I informed that certain political parties have expressed this and some other views, but I did not mention that I have decided to refrain from inviting polls observers from “Europe against Sri Lanka” or “Countries that voted against Sri Lanka”, Mr Deshapriya adds.
Reporter Chris Kamalendran adds:
I confirmed the news report from various sources before it was written. The Commissioner of Elections, Mr Deshapriya did say at the meeting attended by secretaries and representatives of registered political parties that a decision was taken on a request made to him, not to entertain monitors from countries that had voted against Sri Lanka at the March UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva. He did not say from where the request came.
Mr Deshapriya says that the suggestion came from political parties. He must then say which political parties made the suggestion. Our inquiries are to the contrary. The suggestion came from the Commissioner himself.
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