Fellow countrymen pray for clean elections in East
Several civil society organisations and concerned citizens appeal to
the respective parties to support for a free and fair election in the
Batticaloa District
We have come together as a group of concerned civil society
organisations and citizens to express our firm solidarity with the
people of the East in the immense challenge they face in the local
government election to be held on March 10, 2008.
We consider the election an important milestone in the road map to
peace democracy and the economic recovery of North and the East of the
country. The election provides the political space and opportunity to
enable the people to begin participating democratically in the peace
process and protecting their human security. We urge the government, the
political parties and the voting population to join in a concerted
effort to make the election a successful and fully democratic election.
The conditions are propitious for such an effort. This election is
being held in one District covering a voting population of only about
275,000 voters and 285 polling stations. This small size of the election
enables the government authorities, the Police, the Election
Commissioner and election monitoring organisations and political parties
to concentrate their resources and efforts to ensure a free and fair
election including the campaign and the voting.
We appeal to the President to give the necessary directions to ensure
a free and fair election as has been done in the past. The election
would be watched and assessed by all Sri Lankans and the international
community as evidence of the good faith of the Government and its
intentions to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
It is a first stage in the democratic process and provincial
elections recommended by the APRC. The government, therefore, needs to
make a credible demonstration of its capacity to control the forces of
violence and dispel the fears that people have regarding the possible
use of arms by some of the contesting parties and their suspicions of
government's complicity in such possible action.
The monitoring organisations which have been given the authority to
station monitors in polling stations should mobilise the support of
public spirited citizens from other parts of the country to conduct an
intensive monitoring exercise.
The civil society organisations should also invoke the authority of
the Supreme Court as was done in the past to put in place the procedures
and safeguards that protect the rights of candidates and voters and
creates all the conditions essential for a free and fair election
particularly in regard to the use of arms by contesting parties.
All political parties must approach the election as a test of Sri
Lanka's capacity as a society pledged to democratic rights and freedom
for all people and must effectively enforce the internal disciplines
that will prevent violence.
There are two examples of past efforts that should inspire us - the
effort that was made by the people to protect their democratic rights in
1987-1989 in the midst of terror and violence and the manner in which
the political parties were able to conduct a local government elections
in the North in 1997 relatively free of violence.
An appeal by civil society organisations under the signatories of
their leaders and Concerned citizens and their appeal for a free and
fair election in the Batticaloa District Signatories to the appeal:
Most. Ven. Kotugoda Dhammavasa Thero, Rt. Revd. Dr. Kingsley Swampillai,
Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, Dr. Godfrey Gunatilleke, Mangala Moonasinghe, Ms.
Jezima Ismail, A. Javid Yusuf, Dr. H. S. Wanasinghe, Dr. Nimal
Sanderatne, Prof. Susirith Mendis, Dr. Nimal Gunathileke, Dr. Lloyd
Fernando, Ms. Manuori Muttetuwegama, Dr. Praneeth Abhayasundera, Udaya
Amarasinghe, Rumi Mohamed, Prof. S. T. Hettige, Ms. Nimal Breckenridge,
Dr. Padma Ratnayake, Dr. Jehan Perera, Upali Hettiarachchi, Buddhika
Niranjan Gamage, P. Mudalige, Dr. M. C. Swarnalatha Perera, Dr. G.
Uswattearachchi, Kingsley Rodrigo, Ms. Myrtle Perera and Newton
Fernando.
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