DailyMirror
People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) said the usage of polythene had increased substantially during the pre-election period of the general election this year in comparison to previous elections.
Speaking at a media briefing held yesterday, PAFFREL spokesman Rohana Hettiarachchi said a large number of propaganda material was still on display in spite of the attempts of the police and warnings by the Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake for their removal.
He also said several cases of transfers and interdictions of public sector officials had also been reported and added that public sector property was also being heavily misused by certain candidates.
“Among the total of 179 election violence complaints that PAFFREL received, 31 of them were inter-party clashes and this is about 40% of the total number. 33 individuals were hospitalized as a result of these incidents,” said Hettiarachchi. He also added that 81 complaints out of the total number of complaints were critical incidents.
Speaking of their monitoring process for the upcoming election, Hettiarachchi said PAFFREL would be deploying nearly 11,000 election monitors including 9000 that would be positioned at specific locations such as polling centres. Others would consist of 320 mobile monitoring centres as well as 160 long-term election monitors.
Also, he said that monitors would also be deployed at results issuing centres in each district. “We initially requested Commissioner Dissanayake to grant us permission to monitor the counting centres due to the controversial situation that arose owing to the allegations made by certain political parties,” said Hettiarachchi. However, even though they were not provided permission to monitor the counting centers, he said monitors would be deployed at the Elections Department to ensure transparency.
Coordinator of Foreign Monitors, Sandun Gunawardena said although they had plans of bringing down 50 foreign monitors, only 16 would be arriving in Sri Lanka to monitor the election process. “None of the political parties showed any enthusiasm about bringing down foreign monitors. However, as a response to the last minute request that they have made we were able to bring down these monitors through the Association of Asian Election Monitors,” he said.
Gunawardena said that these foreign monitors would be deployed in eight districts, mostly in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The other foreign monitors would be positioned at areas in which a high number of election violence cases had been reported such as Batticaloa and Badulla. Meanwhile, PAFFREL has also established a special complaints unit.