DailyMirror
Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFÉ), which put out its final report on the Parliamentary Election held in February, said that the election was not held according to international standards.
It said that CaFFE had received reports of 39 confirmed cases of misuse of State/Public properties during the pre-election period. Many government servants it reported had complained to the Human Rights Commission of incidents such as the arbitrary transfers, harassment and unlawful interdictions.
The report highlighted that marking the index number of the voter which was marked in the voter register on the counter file of the ballot paper was done in this election too according to the provisions made under the clause 37 (A) of the Parliamentary Election Act no 1 of 1981. It said the people did not have any prior knowledge of this. “This is in fact violating the basic principle of trust one places in an election as it created a problem of securing the confidentiality of the ballot,” the report said pointing out that it helped to track the party a particular voter had voted for. CaFFE received 156 cases with regard to the violation of election laws during the pre-election period as well.
CaFFÉ alleged that the whole process of getting the IDPs to voting booths itself had been deeply politicized. This situation was visible also prevalent among the Muslim community, in the Wanni and Jaffna districts. CaFFE believes that there were ample opportunities for manipulating the helpless situation the IDPs were in to get them to caste their votes for a particular candidate and in the process causing many discrepancies.
The monitoring body also alleged that in the distribution of voting cards, issuing of temporary identity cards to IDPs etc. there appeared to be political pressure brought to bear on them. CaFFE said it had proof that the same person has applied to vote at two places, even after the last Presidential Election. Most of the time, these had taken place with political interventions and by submitting fake documents created by organized groups.
The report also slammed the opposition saying that they seemed to be inactive and ineffective during the election. “The main opposition United National Party (UNP) is to be blamed for not being able to monitor the many election malpractices that took place during the election campaign and on Election Day and bring them out into the open,” it said. It added that the presence of a strong opposition is very important in a truly representative democracy.
CaFFÉ recommended that an Independent Election, Police and Public Service Commissions be set up in accordance with the basic law of the constitution. It also recommended a system of registration of voters which was on par with international standards to be used at future elections.