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Poll monitors enter the fray: Focus on voter education, campaign financing and social media
Amid uncertainty over whether the provincial or presidential elections will be held first, poll monitors are gearing up to ensure a free and fair elections through voter education programmes and measures to monitor campaign financing and combat social media misinformation campaigns.
Voter education programmes are being given priority by the monitors, with the likelihood of preferential votes being counted, if no candidate wins 50 percent +1 vote in the first count of votes in the presidential election to be held on or before December 9.
The People’s Action Front for Free and Fair Election Executive Director, Rohana Hettiarachchi, said if no candidate got 50 percent + 1 votes in the first count, the preferential votes would decide the winner. With this likelihood in mind, election monitoring missions were advocating voter education on how to mark the ballot paper, he said.
Part of the voter education programme is to stress the importance of a candidate’s manifesto. Voters are to be told to demand from politicians their manifestos and study them to see whether they offer solutions to their problems.
The National Election Commission will also carry out voter education programmes with the help of the media and civil society groups.
Additional Director Saman Ratnayake said that at every polling booth posters will be displayed explaining how to mark the ballot paper.
“It is the duty of the political parties to educate the public on voting, but candidates who go canvassing only say ‘vote for me’,” he said.
For the upcoming elections, the 2018 voter register will be used. As a result, around 300,000 new voters who registered this year will be left out.
Last week, the NEC had discussions with President Maithripala Sirisena to underscore the importance of the campaign financing bill before the upcoming elections. The bill has been approved by the Cabinet and is with the Attorney General. If the law to be implemented before the upcoming elections, it has to be passed in Parliament before the nomination day.
The NEC said there was no legal framework to monitor or control social media contents. But it will issue guidelines to the mainstream media.
PAFFREL chief Hettiarachchi said social media platforms had been misused during election campaigns to instigate violence, spread rumours and influence the outcome of elections. He said PAFFREL was talking with an Indian company to vet and block messages that could be detrimental to a just process.
On the issue of 300,000 new voters not being able to vote, Mr. Hettiarachchi said his group had been asking the election authorities for a strategic plan to enable all eligible voters to exercise their franchise at any election.
He said the PAFFREL was in favour of the campaign financing bill and was also lobbying for an election calendar – like in the United States — so that those in power would not be able to postpone elections citing various excuses. This will also give the NEC and monitoring bodies more time to plan and work in an orderly manner, he said.
The PAFFREL is also campaigning for a separate election court for the speedy disposal of cases related to election frauds and violence. Some cases filed went on for years so much so that in the last provincial council elections, nobody cared to file cases. “A separate court will speed up process,” he said.
With regard to the voting right of millions of Sri Lankan migrant workers in West Asia and elsewhere, he said a proper system should be introduced, as there was a possibility of corruption creeping in if the voting process was held in embassies headed by political appointees.
The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) said it was planning on tracking down campaign financing by candidates. Executive Director Manjula Gajanayake said an official data of Rs. 2700 million allocated to the candidates through the NEC is available. “There is no account on how much the parties and candidates spend,” he said.
A CMEV survey, he said, had found that during the 2015 presidential election campaign, a whopping Rs.5 billion was spent by candidates and parties on newspaper and electronic media advertisements, hoardings, air travel and providing transport to supporters.
He said the draft bill — now being reviewed by the AG — would impose limits on how much a party or a candidate could spend depending on the number of candidates, the geography and demography of the area.
Mr. Gajanaayke said the CMEV was also focusing of women candidates to increase their participation in politics and protect them from violence, threat, hate speech and harassment from their male counterparts. Already there are 1,919 women representatives in local councils. He said they were holding talks with PAFFREL to combat election-related hate speech in social media.