LTTE meets elections monitors

by Manjula Fernando

The LTTE without mentioning names has voiced that there will be other 'groups' in the North and East who want to disrupt the November 17 poll.

LTTE's Peace Secretariat Chief S. Pulidevan expressed this view to PAFFREL Executive Director Kingsley Rodrigo when he met him in Kilinochchi on Sunday, PAFFREL National Coordinator Thusitha Aluthpatabendige said.

Countering allegations of intimidation and violence and blocking their rivals from campaigning in the North and East, the LTTE's Peace Secretariat Chief has promised it will support a free and fair election in the region. The meeting was arranged to call for LTTE's support to ensure an incident free election amid widespread accusations by political parties and certain candidates that there will be no room for an independent poll in the North and East due to the LTTE's conduct.

The LTTE leader has said that they had no concern as to who will win the election, since there was no leader among the 13 candidates dedicated to solve Tamils' problems or the ethnic conflict.

Pulidevan has also raised the issue of cluster polling stations in the Government controlled areas saying that the voters in the uncleared areas had to travel sometimes 30 to 40 kilometres to cast their vote. "Despite a free transport service this will be very inconvenient to the voters," Pulidevan has stressed questioning 'if no leader cares about them why bother so much' to take part in the balloting.

He has also proposed the Government to have polling stations in the uncleared areas and had said they would welcome monitors from any independent body. The LTTE has also pointed out that at least 150,000 registered voters in the North and East should be counted out as they are either dead or out of the country.

According to Elections Secretariat statistics nearly two million people in the North and East are eligible to vote.

The European Union election observation team at the end of their mission at the last year's General Election made very critical remarks over polling in this region due to the LTTE's actions.

In order to prevent a repetition, all local and international monitoring bodies observing the November election have stressed that nearly 80 per cent of their foreign teams will be stationed in the North and East.