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| Tuesday, 30 March 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| Campaigning ends at midnight Six weeks of hectic campaigning for the April 2 General Election will end at midnight today. All political parties and independent groups will have to stop public rallies and door-to-door campaigning before this deadline, in accordance with election laws. As the curtain falls on the campaign to elect 225 members to the 13th Parliament, leaders of all major political parties will intensify their campaigns today, addressing several meetings across the country to brief the people on their policies and work plans for the next six years. The two major political fronts in the fray, the United People's Freedom Alliance and the United National Front will focus attention on the main cities both in Colombo and the outskirts today. The UPFA's final propaganda rallies, addressed by senior leaders, will be held in Kuliyapitiya and Maharagama. The UNF's final rally will be held in Maradana. Most of the other parties will hold their last election propaganda meetings in Colombo. Tamil political parties in the Northern and Eastern provinces have shown much enthusiasm at this election. Their final meetings will be held in cities such as Jaffna, Batticaloa and Trincomalee. The current campaign by political parties was relatively peaceful and considerably quiet in many areas when compared to the 2001 poll. There were fewer incidents of violence this year. The worst acts of violence were the slaying of a UNF candidate and an EPDP supporter in Batticaloa. A crackdown on posters also kept most walls clean. Police and municipal authorities took swift steps to remove posters as soon as they appeared. The Commissioner of Elections Dayananda Dissanayake instructed the electronic media to stop political advertisements and other programs that contribute towards the campaign from midnight yesterday. He has also instructed print media institutions not to publish political advertisements after March 31. He has urged all parties to assist him to conduct a free and fair election and warned that polling booths that may be affected to due to violence or disruptive activity would be declared null and void during counting. Meanwhile, defence sources said that security in the city and suburbs had been tightened to prevent any untoward incidents during final campaign and thereafter till the polls are over. President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on Sunday directed defence authorities to throw a tight security blanket in Colombo following the shooting of UNP candidate, former minister T. Maheswaran who was shot and seriously wounded by unknown gunmen in the city. Voting will be conducted at 10,439 polling booths spread across 22 electoral districts. Voters will elect 196 members on the basis of district proportional representation, while another 29 seats are allocated from the National Lists. Some 64,000 police and 40,000 public servants will be deployed to monitor and conduct the election. Two police officers will be allocated to each polling booth during the voting period from 7 am to 4 pm. International and local monitors are deploying more than 25,000 monitors to observe voting on April 2. |
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