UNP seeks N-E re-poll

THE United National Party yesterday urged Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake to call a re-poll in the North-East where the voters were prevented from exercising their franchise.

It sent a letter to the Polls Chief and also released a statement to the press in this regard.

The statement: "In view of the extremely narrow margin which separates the two candidates - 28,632 votes more than the Constitutionally required 50% of the total valid votes cast - and in the interests of the 4,706,366 electors who voted for the United National Party candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Party requested the Commissioner of Elections for the exercise of his statutory powers for a re-poll.

Hundreds of thousands of eligible voters names in the electorates outside the North and East have been intentionally omitted from the Register of Electors for the Presidential Poll and they could not exercise their fundamental rights to vote. The number exceeds the margin of 28,632.

In the polling areas in the North and East hundreds of thousands of eligible voters were not permitted to exercise their right to vote freely and fairly. This number also exceeds the margin of 28,632.

In these circumstances, taking into account the number of voters who were prevented from exercising their franchise in the North, East and the South no candidate has received the statutory 50 per cent vote required and therefore, no candidate has a mandate today."

Addressing journalists at a news briefing in Colombo, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said: "If you can't win in the South, you can't win the country."

Asked whether he feels let down by the LTTE, he said he "had no deal with them to feel let down."

Wickremesinghe, who had earned a reputation as a keen strategist and a shrewd negotiator, appeared to have been led up the garden path by the Tigers and then ditched.

"I was never expecting to win with the votes in Jaffna," Wickremesinghe told AFP.