November date mooted for Polls

by Manjula Fernando

Assistant District Elections Commissioners have requested the Polls Chief to hold the Presidential Election in November giving them enough time to make preparations to hold a free and fair election to elect the fifth Executive President to Office.

The gazette notifying the election date is expected to be issued by the Elections Commissioner this week.

Holding his first election meeting ahead of the crucial Presidential Polls, Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake briefed the district Assistant Commissioners on the tentative preparations for the election for which the date is yet to be announced by him, senior official sources at the Secretariat said.

The meeting started at 10.30 a.m and went on till 1.00 p.m.

Asked whether the gazette will be withheld until President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's return from her official visit to China, he said the Elections Chief can issue the notice when he wishes. The sources ruled out a possibility of a double election, a General and a Presidential simultaneously, as rumoured, saying that such an election had never been held in Sri Lanka.

"We are not considering such a double election," he stressed.

Yesterday's District ACs meeting was convened originally to discuss the 2005 voters list revision, the official said adding that the agenda was revised to accommodate new developments following the Supreme Court ruling.

According to the sources, the Presidential election will be based on the 2004 voters list since the revision is to take several more months to wrap up. The Elections Department said the Presidential poll would cost more than Rs. 800 million, the amount spent at the General Election in April last year.

Noting that the tsunami affected districts are yet to return to normality, the Elections Chief directed district ACs to submit situation reports to finalise the ground work, he said.

The Department will also take steps to find alternative places for some polling stations destroyed in the December tsunami.

The meeting chaired by Dissanayake was attended by all Assistant District Commissioners and Election Secretariat officials.

ID not compulsory

The Polls Chief will not make the national ID compulsory to vote at the forthcoming Presidential Election. The Parliamentary Act will come into effect only on November 18.

The Department for Registration of Persons says an estimated one million are without national IDs and the majority are from the estate sector. Only 42,000 from the 60,000 who lost their IDs in the December 2004 tsunami have been issued IDs.