Ballot boxes stuffed as officials look on

With 15 minutes for voting to close at the polling booth of the Ariyampathi Tamil Maha Vidyalaya last Saturday, a gang stormed the booth and asked as to how many votes were yet to be cast. The officials, obviously through fear, disclosed the figure and were told "our men will be coming to vote do not obstruct them".

Minutes later, eyewitnesses said another gang stormed the booth, grabbed the unused ballot papers and stuffed them into the boxes. The eyewitnesses identified the gang as cadres of the TMVP or Pillayan group. No action was taken against them by the officials or by the police officers guarding the booth, they said.

At Vakarai, TMVP cadres armed with pistols walked into the polling booth and ordered the UNP polling agent to leave immediately. Though another UNP member from outside the province was present, 500 ballots were grabbed and stuffed into the boxes while the officials just watched on.

A lawyer representing the UNP immediately wrote a letter to the senior presiding officer, but it was not accepted, two election monitors said. The UNP polling agent who was chased away had tried to lodge a complaint at the police station but he was turned away and an armed gang was seen following him on motorcycles.

At Mahajana College Batticaloa, a candidate detected an impersonator and informed the police and the Senior Presiding officer, but the complaint was ignored. Attempts were made to lodge a complaint at the local police station but the polling agent was turned away, eyewitnesses said.

These were just a few of the election malpractices reported by opposition candidates, agents and observers, but many others went officially unreported as presiding officers and police stations refused to record the complaints. Local monitoring groups are expected to come up with their full reports soon.

Officials of these groups said action had not yet been taken on most of the cases reported to polling booth officials and police officers. They said the monitors had drawn the attention of the Elections Commissioner to blatant violations of election laws mainly at the polling booths in the Verugal, Kappalthurai and Echampaththu divisional secretariat areas in Trincomalee, the Valaichchenai, Ottamavadi, Porrative, Kokkadichcholai, Kathankudai and Ariyampathi areas in Batticaloa and the Thirukovvil and Akkaraipattu areas in Digamadulla.

According to the Centre for Monitoring Elections Violence (CMEV) several serious incidents were reported from Thirukkovil and Alayadivembu in the Pottuvil electorate of the Ampara district. The charges included the presence of armed TMVP cadres outside polling booths, children as young as 13 or 14 distributing polling cards and even casting votes, impersonation and the absence of an official to check the ID cards.

Such incidents took place in at least 13 polling booths in Pottuvil, CMEV official Manjula Gajanayake said. He said CMEV monitors had seen polling agents being chased away by gangs from the booths at the Vakarai Maha Vidyalaya.

"Some 150 people came in buses went to the polling station around 2 p.m, chased away the polling agents and stuffed the ballot boxes with votes," Mr. Gajanayake claimed. He said people carrying arms were seen travelling in vehicles without number plates in Batticaloa where illegal voting was seen in several areas.

"People standing outside the polling booth in Kattankudi were seen distributing bogus ID cards or casting illegal votes," Mr. Gajanayake said. The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) reported that armed gangs were seen in areas such Batticaloa and Kalmunai. But they quickly dispersed when they saw the monitors, CaFFE spokesman Kirthi Tennakoon said.

He said that in Trincomalee, CaFFE officials observed that internally displaced persons from Puttalam were brought there to cast illegal votes."Around 500 people were brought from IDP camps in Puttalam to Trincomalee. They stood outside the polling stations and chased away the people who were coming in to vote in the morning after their polling cards were grabbed," Mr. Tennakoon said.

In addition, people in the Digamadulla district were seriously intimidated by alleged acts of the LTTE such as the hotel bomb explosion on election eve and a mortar attack on a village in Ampara on election day. CaFFE officials also said that about 30 serious incidents of election malpractices and violence were reported from the Trincomalee district on the elections day.

They said these included intimidation, threatening with weapons, causing damage to opposition party offices and stuffing ballots. They said rigging took place in Mutur and Kiliveddy in the district. Polling cards of people living in Kiliveddy IDP camps were forcibly grabbed by armed men backed by the ruling party.

The officials said they received a complaint that three ballot boxes from a booth close to the camps were forcibly removed by members of the government-backed paramilitary group. Another complaint said the vehicles carrying UNP parliamentarians Ravi Karunanayake and Gayantha Karunathilake were were stoned and damaged by thugs brought from Colombo by a minister.

In rural areas government vehicles were seen allegedly transporting persons to polling stations, the officials said. Another monitoring group, the People's Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), said it noted an increased number of incidents during the last few days before the elections.

It said more than hundred incidents were reported including some cases of threat and intimidation and 13 instances of misuse of public property, such as the state media.

PAFFREL said it observed several key issues which prevented the conducting of a free and fair election. These included the fear psychosis that was spread all over the Eastern Province, the presence of TMVP armed cadres, the launching of development projects to coincide with the polls in apparent violation of election laws and political parties not being able to deploy polling agents to some polling stations due to intimidation.