Lanka poll: Asian monitors lament military involvement

A group of election monitors drawn from Asian countries today said the northern provincial council election in Sri Lanka was mostly free and fair but lamented the role of the military and unfair tactics.
Head of the group, former Indian Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami, however said that despite some of the incidents reported there was a "substantial turnout" of voters which showed interest in participation in the democratic process.
Gopalaswami also raised concerns over the alleged role of the army in the attack on the house of a candidate of the Tamil National Alliance party (TNA) on election eve.

"A local election monitor was also injured in the attack," Gopalaswami noted.
The army was also involved in the election in other ways including by distributing handouts, the monitors charged.
Gopalaswami advocated empowering of the position of the election commissioner to ensure free and fair elections.

"The Election Commissioner should be given overarching powers," he said.
"We are dismayed at the publication of a fake newspaper and the promotion of that false publication on a television station on the day of polling. The group is not aware of any action to stop the television station from broadcasting about the fake publication," Gopalaswami added.

A fake edition of the Jaffna-based Tamil daily 'Uthayan' had been distributed on election day which had made a false claim that the TNA had withdrawn from contesting the polls.
He also said that on the recommendation of the monitors, measures were taken to assist war-displaced voters to be transported to polling centres.
However Gopalaswami said that only 26 per cent of the internally displaced people voted in the election.
TNA recorded a landslide win yesterday in the first ever provincial council election in the island's Tamil-dominated north.