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No violence at postal voting but polls law violations, say election monitors
View(s):The independent election monitors said yesterday that postal voting for the Presidential elections concluded this week without any major violence but there were serious election law violations reported throughout the country.
Postal voting in Dambulla. Pic by Kanchana Kumara
The independent election monitoring body Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) said there were serious breaches in election laws in postal voting which forced the polling agents to intervene.
“We had a very peaceful postal voting but with severe election law violations. In some instances there was election propaganda material found inside the polling stations. Our monitors had to request the polls officials to remove them.” said Keerthi Tennakoon, Executive director of CaFFE.
According to CaFFE there was one serious incident reported in Trincomalee where a local politician who crossed over to support the New Democratic Front (NDF) candidate Maithripala Sirisena had assaulted a member of the Komarangoda Pradeshiya Sabha.
People’s Action For Free And Fair Elections (PAFFREL) Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi said they had received 12 complaints regarding postal voting, of which two were related to serious assaults reported from Gomarankadawala in the Trincomalee District and Deniyaya in the Matara District.
Meanwhile the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), another independent election monitoring body said 61 incidents have been reported, with 27 major incidents including assault, threat and intimidation, misuse of state resources, incidents related to election officers and the intimidating presence of party activists and supporters.
Another incident reported at the Civil Security Department at Vishwamadu, Mullaitivu was that the people were unaware how to vote and had given their ballot papers to the Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) to mark the vote on their behalf.
The CMEV monitor observed the ARO casting three votes during this period. Lt Colonel J.P Ganegoda is the certifying officer who was present during this period. The monitor reported that 477 had already cast their vote with 931 names being in the list.
The Elections Department had rejected 11,611 out of 55,755 postal voters’ applications from Anuradhapura District on the basis of not duly filled and not qualified.
Ceylon Teachers’ Union General Secretary Joseph Stalin said the rejected applicants, particularly teachers, were not informed about the rejections on time and questioned that since the number of rejections were high, why the department failed to give alternative options to the teachers.
Jaffna District Returning Officer (RO) Sundaram Arumainayagam told the Sunday Times that the postal voters’ turnout in the district was more than 90 percent until Friday.
“14,328 voters were entitled to cast their votes as postal voters in 250 polling stations. So far I have not received any complaints regarding any violence or violations in the district. The voting process is very peaceful here.” he said.