Elections chief meets international observers

by Manjula Fernando

With only five days to go for the seventh Presidential election, Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya yesterday met a team of international observers who arrived here on his invitation to monitor the conduct of the election.

The members of Association of Asian Election Authorities (AAEA) and Forum of Election Management Bodies of South Asia (FEMBoSA) were briefed by the Commissioner on the conduct and rules of the Presidential election during the meeting, a spokesperson for the Elections Department said.

Seventy international observers, 35 each from AAEA and FEMBoSA are due here shortly to observe the pre and post election.

“Some of them had arrived as early as the first week in December and the others are yet to come,” the spokesperson said.

Former Chief Election Commissioner of India Dr. S.Y. Quraishi, Indonesian Elections Commissioner Sigit Pamungkas and Kazakhstan Election Commission Chairman Askar Kurmangaliyev represent the AAEA.

Among the FEMBoSA representatives are Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal Neelkantha Uprety, Bangladesh Election Commissioner Brig. Gen (retd) Md. Zabed Ali and Maldivian Election Commissioner I.H.A. Raheem.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has sent a two-member pre-election team and more Commonwealth observers are scheduled to arrive before the January 8 election.

Only the local monitors, PAFFREL and CMEV are authorised to have stationary polls observers in the polling stations on election day. Several other local independent monitoring bodies have been permitted to have mobile units to observe the conduct of the poll.

The spokesperson said the election will be held in 12,314 polling centres islandwide. A total of 15,044,174 voters are eligible to cast their votes. Nineteen candidates handed over their nominations to contest the election.

The two main candidates are Rajapaksa Percy Mahendra of the United People’s Freedom Alliance who is contesting on the Betel leaf and Pallewatte Gamaralalage Maithripala Yapa Sirisena of the New Democratic Front, who is contesting on the Swan symbol.

The Police Department will deploy 66,100 policemen and a 5,000 member STF force on election duty while 191,000 public servants will be posted for election duty.