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Voters, candidates dejected as polls for Northern Councils delayed for third time
Polls for two local councils in Mullaitivu District have been postponed for the third time leaving candidates and voters dejected.
The Supreme Court on Friday issued a stay order not to hold the elections for Maritime Pattu and Puthukkudiyirippu local councils in the Mullaitivu District having considered the two human rights petitions appealing against the conduct of the poll on a previous nomination list.
The petitioners claimed that this is a basic human rights violation since an eligible voter cannot contest the council elections since the Elections Commissioner decided to conduct the election according to the nominations made in 2011.
The ballot boxes and the ballot papers for the election were distributed by Friday. The officials assigned for election duty including police officers were directed to the respective polling centres.
Anthonypillai Mariyathas, JP., and president of Mullaitivu Fisheries Federation told the Sunday Times that his district was severely affected by three decades of war which has ended now. Even so the people still cannot elect their representatives to govern them.
“The water supply, roads, community centres and other public amenities are at stake now without the people’s representatives to see they function properly,” he said.
He added that the election officials should have considered this legal issue before they decided to hold the election.
“The decision to postpone the election comes after most arrangements are made. If the authorities made this decision one week before we could have dealt with this matter in a different way,” he said.
Soon after the Elections Commissioner’s decision to postpone the election, the candidates and their supporters said they were disappointed that elections have been further delayed.
Kumaravel Rajendran, the group leader of the United National Party (UNP) contesting for seats in the Puthukkudiyirippu local council, questioned why the people of the Mullaitivu District are continuously denied the basic right of sending their representatives to the council.
“I have campaigned and canvassed for this election. With the postponement I have lost over a million rupees as this election has been delayed from 2011,” he said.
Anthony Jeganathan, A Tamil National Alliance (TNA) candidate alleged that these elections were called off at the last minute because the people who went to court knew the TNA was going to get the majority of the seats in both councils.
Meanwhile Deputy Elections Commissioner M.M. Mohammed told the Sunday Times that due to the last minute decision to postpone the election the Elections Department has to face a huge financial loss.
“We have not calculated exactly how much we have spent on the preparations for this election but it certainly is a huge amount. Now we are awaiting the Supreme Court’s directive to take the next step.” he said.
People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), an independent election monitoring body said that it has made every arrangements for the monitoring activities in the district and counting process but had to stop at the last minute.
Executive Director of PAFFREL Rohana Hettiarachchci said They have trained 95 polling monitors and dispatched an election monitoring team from Colombo to monitor the voting process.
” This is unfair by the voters of the Mullaitivu distrcit. Voters are fed up with the last minute calling off and the candidates too are discouraged. The Election Commissioner has to come to an agrrement with the political parties following the court’s directive.” he said.