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. |