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Nominations for Parliamentary polls from tomorrow, as EC assumes pole position
View(s):The Nomination period for the August 17 Parliamentary election will commence tomorrow, Monday, July 6 and end on Monday, July 13, Elections Dept officials said. Returning Officers and Assistant Returning Officers appointed to the 22 Electoral Districts were briefed by Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya this week on the procedure to be followed when accepting or rejecting Nominations.
Election’s in the air: It’s time for posters and banners of all hues (above and below). Pic by Indika Handuwala
Government Agents (GA)/District Secretaries (DS) are the Returning Officers (RO) for each Electoral District. The Jaffna GA/DS will be RO for the Jaffna Electoral District, comprising of Jaffna and Kilinochchi Administrative Districts, while the Vavuniya GA/DS will be RO of the Vanni District comprising Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu.
The RO of the Digamadulla Electoral District will be the GA/DS of then Ampara District while the ROs of all the other Electoral Districts will be their respective GA/DS, the Dept said. The Commissioner told the ROs that their responsibility is to ensure that all nominations are accepted, while in cases where there was a need to reject any application, it would have to be clarified with him. “Our responsibility is to facilitate the process, hence we must assist the prospective candidates to file their Nominations without a hassle,” Mr Deshapriya said.
Meanwhile the Elections Commission has started accepting deposits from independent groups intending to contest the polls. To date, 14 such groups have paid their deposits. Under the Parliamentary Elections Act, each candidate from an independent group has to pay Rs 2,000 as a deposit to contest the poll, while political parties are exempted from deposits.
Pic by Athula Bandara
The Dept this week released the amounts payable for each District, computed according to the number of candidate’s returnable from each District. Commissioner Deshapriya discouraged political parties from fielding independent candidates as their proxies to win more airtime on radio and TV, as well as to have more campaign offices, saying he would not allow the system to be abused in this manner.
“Only candidates contesting the election can use his/her office for their campaign work, and not to promote other candidates. This is the same with the airtime given to them on radio and TV,” he said. Meanwhile, the Commissioner also requested that places of religious worship be not used for election propaganda activity such as meetings or as campaign offices.
Arrangements have also been made to give disabled voters more time to apply to the Dept for facilities to transport them to polling stations on Election Day, for which the necessary forms will be issued this week.
Pic by Amila Gamage