Sangaree to Commissioner: Halt Vanni 2004 polls repeat
TULF leader V. Anandasangaree has alerted the Elections Commissioner
Dayananda Dissanayake to the possibility of a repeat of the mass scale
vote rigging witnessed in the Vanni sector during the last Parliamentary
elections, at the upcoming Presidential poll.
He has called on the Commissioner to ensure that whoever gets elected
as the President is by the free will of the people and not by proxies.
He has also urged the Commissioner not to establish cluster polling
stations unless an Identity card of any form is insisted on for a voter
to leave the Vanni and come to the cleared areas to vote.
Writing to the Commissioner Anandasangaree states:
"Once again you have been entrusted with the difficult task of
holding an election, this time electing the President of Sri Lanka.
Although you succeeded in holding a Free and Fair election, to a great
extent in all parts of Sri Lanka, it was a miserable failure in the
North and the East, for which I do not blame you.
Since you were not empowered to annul the election in respect of an
Electoral District the Government should have taken the initiative
either to hold a fresh poll to the North and the East or a repoll in the
entire country. The number of seats involved being 22 is not a small
number to be ignored.
"I have a number of witnesses, very creditable too, to prove that the
Returning Officer his assistant, the Senior and Junior Presiding
Officers, a host of other officials assigned election duty, NGOO,
Members of some Monitoring Teams, high religious Dignitaries and such
others had been briefed by LTTE Leaders on, as to how poll should be
conducted.
I don't find fault with anyone of them for attending such meetings
under threat,but people with such responsibilities should have brought
this matter to your notice without conniving with one another to conduct
a fraudulent election, committing a serious crime of treason.
Since all staff on election duty in the North were all Tamils the
LTTE found it easy to compel them to connive and act as instructed by
them.
"I am one who respects you as a very honest officer who will conduct
this election impartially and make it free and fair in the North and the
East also. Please ensure that whoever gets elected as President is by
the free will of the people. If the bad precedent created at the last
Parliamentary Election in the North and East is repeated at this
election too it will be difficult to mend in the future.
The Tamil Public Servants who conducted the election in the North and
East should take the blame for failing to protect the rights of the
Tamil people who are not free to decide on their own. Hence without
entrusting the task to the same set of Government servants kindly have
Government servants of all communities mixed so that if the Returning
Officer is a Tamil the Deputy is a Sinhalese or Muslim and every polling
station must have the Senior Presiding Officer or the Junior Presiding
Officer (JPO) and half or one third of the officials assigned election
duty should be either Sinhalese or Muslim.
For mysterious reasons the police did not do any election duty other
than maintaining Law and Order and therefore the assistance of the
Security Forces was not requested.
The impersonators had a free day going about with bundles of genuine
and forged Polling Cards in a number of vehicles from one Polling
Station to the other, men casting women's votes and women men's votes.
The requirement is only possession of a Polling Card and the capacity to
identify a symbol. The police simply looked on while voting went on
smoothly. I hope you yourself would have been shocked to hear all these.
Let it not happen again. I understand 5,000 police officers are due to
be transferred from the North and the East to the South.
Please have these transfers cancelled and also empower the security
forces to do election duty without the condition, to give help only if
asked for. Please see that all vehicles other than those commissioned by
the Returning Officer for election duty and public transport, are kept
in doors with orders to arrest any vehicle seen on the road.
Very frequent patrolling is also necessary and every junction should
have a set of Police or Army officers to check vehicles and to identify
persons seen with Polling Cards. Sri Lankan Democracy is peculiar to Sri
Lanka only, since a voter who has the right to vote need not know or see
the person to whom is voting or knowing what his policies are. The Vanni
people has lost so many democratic rights.
Voting for a person without knowing anything about him is not going
to do any good for him. Further more he is not sure whether he will be
voting direct or by proxy.
He would rather stay at home without voting. Hence don't establish
cluster polling stations unless an identity card of any form is insisted
on for a voter to leave the Vanni and to come in to the cleared area to
vote. Unlike last time the polling booths should be in cleared area with
full security for agents of candidates to canvas support, among the
voters which too though irregular will be better than last time.
During the last Parliamentary Elections the TNA under the pretext of
performing street dramas all over the Kilinochchi District characterized
me in a demeaning manner showering heaps of allegations about me.
What is the protection a candidate has if an announcement is made in
Vanni that a candidate had withdrawn from the contest. This happened to
me last time. |