Extra measures to ensure smooth North-East poll
 

by Manjula Fernando

With political parties and presidential hopefuls at loggerheads over modalities of holding elections in the North and East, the Elections Secretariat stated yesterday that it has taken additional measures to ensure a free and fair election in the region.

The Deputy Elections Commissioner W.P Sumanasiri said they have decided to station Grama Niladaris at polling booths to help election officers identify the voters.

"In addition there will be no polling stations in the uncleared areas and polls officers will comprise government servants from the south," he said.

Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake, in a bid to prevent election malpractices during the 2001 general election took steps to make national IDs compulsory for North and East voters.

However, one political party which gave its consent to the decision earlier went to courts at the last moment and obtained a restraining order against it.

"Thus, we are unable to introduce this rule, not even this year. Nevertheless, we have to ensure the franchise of the North and East people," he explained.

Some election monitors and Tamil political parties not aligned with the LTTE has expressed concerns that the LTTE would rig the Presidential election in favour of the parties popular with them and there was no environment for free and fair election in the North and East since the LTTE was dominating the area.

The Deputy Commissioner said the polling stations in the North and East will be protected by armed policemen and police patrols. A total of 1805 polling centres; 624 in Jaffna and 208 in Vanni in the North and 307 in Batticaloa, 391 in Ampara/Digamadulla and 278 in Trincomalee in the East will be set up on November 17 to conduct the polls. This includes the cluster stations for voters from the uncleared areas.

According to the 2004 election registry a total of 952,324 from the North and a total of 952,936 from the East are eligible to vote.