All systems ready for Sri Lanka polls tomorrow

[Joanne98]

Source: Colombo Page


Feb 13, Colombo: The Sri Lankan government said all necessary measures have been taken to conduct a free and fair election tomorrow for the North Western and Central Provincial council elections.

Sri Lanka Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake yesterday introduced a new safety system for the counting of votes and said special security plan is in place for the transportation of ballot boxes.

The Commissioner threatened to nullify the results in the affected polling stations in cases of reported violence or malpractices.

According to the Commissioner if everything runs smoothly the 1st election result could be issued at around dawn on Sunday. The Election Secretariat hopes to release the final result of both provinces at party level by 10:00 a.m. on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Government Information Department has taken steps to provide fast results though the Mobitel Net Work.

The government has strengthened security for the polls considerably. Around 15,000 security personnel have been deployed to maintain law and order.

Commissioner General of Excise V. Hapuarachchi announced that all liquor shops in the North Western and Central provinces will be closed on February 14 and 15 to reduce unwarranted incidents.

Election monitoring group Campaign for Free and Fair Elections, CaFFE reported a total of 112 election related violent incidents within the last two-month period. A majority of the incidents, 36 of them occurred in Kandy.

However the election watchdogs say election related violence is relatively low in comparison with the reported incidents in the recent past.



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