A total of more than 19,000 election monitors will be stationed at voting centres around the country during this week’s General Elections, with an extra-strong concentration of monitors placed at known trouble spots. Intraparty violence is the main concern among monitoring bodies.

People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) director Rohana Hettiarachchi said PAFFREL has signed up 9,000 persons to help as observers. PAFFREL will also deploy 320 mobile teams comprising 1,500 observers. Foreign monitors will be helping out.

“Local observers will be supported by 16 foreign monitors who will be deployed in the North and in Anuradhapura, Badulla, Udunuwara, Gampola, Ratnapura and Galle — places with a history of election violence,” he said.

According to Mr. Hettiarachchi, untoward behaviour at polling booths was less likely to occur when foreign observers were present. The international observers will come from the UK, the US, India and several Asian countries. “Up to now we have received 209 complaints, and most of them were intra party matters,” he said.

“There were 26 incidents that resulted in a total 56 persons having to be admitted to hospital, and of these 98 per cent involved members of the ruling party. We will have to place a large contingent of observers in areas where same-party members are in conflict.”

Mr. Hettiarachchi said PAFFREL election monitors will not be allowed inside the counting centres; instead they will be stationed at points where the results will be announced. The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) will deploy 6,500 observers at 60 per cent of the polling centres, according to CaFFE director Keerthi Tennakoon.

“We will send mobile teams to the Northern Province, and give priority to areas like Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura, Kurunegala, Kandy, and Nuwara Eliya. We expect comparatively peaceful campaigning in Colombo and in the North.”

CaFFE election monitors too will not be allowed inside ballot counting centres, and only at the results announcing centres. We cannot understand why the Elections Department has decided that monitors should not be allowed into the ballot counting centres,” Mr. Tennakoon said. “This is where the presence of observers is essential. It makes no sense to deploy thousands of observers and not have any of them observing the crucial counting of votes.”

Meanwhile, many internally displaced persons resettled in the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu areas are at a loss to know how to go about getting their temporary IDs, Mr Tennakoon said. Obtaining a temporary ID is almost impossible where there is little or no civil administrative infrastructure, he added.

“CaFFE has recorded 319 incidents of election violence – all are cases of assault and attack among candidates and supporters of the same parties. Because the campaigning has been aggressive, we can expect localised violence on polling day,” Mr. Tennakoon said. The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) will be deploying 3,700 monitors and 185 mobile teams, according to CMEV national coordinator D. M. Dissanayake. The CMEV will have three international observers in areas known for election violence.