Postal balloting free, fair and peaceful - PAFFREL

The Peoples Action for free and fair elections (PAFFREL) said yesterday that the Presidential Election postal balloting held on Monday and Tuesday was largely free, fair and peaceful when compared to previous elections.

Election malpractices and coercion were also at a bare minimum compared to previous elections. One significant factor noticed by its monitors was the low turn out of postal voting in the North and East, specially Jaffna compared to previous elections.

The PAFFREL report further said that in the Ampara district nearly 300 teachers encountered problems in exercising their postal ballots as they had to travel 15 to 20 miles this time to reach the polling centre set up in the Kalmunai Zonal Education Office. During previous elections a centre for postal voting was set up in Nintavur itself. But this time the Elections Commissioner had issued a circular stating that postal voting centres should be set up only in schools with Principals belonging to the Education Administrative service.

The Report said that as regards Badulla district the certifying officer in-charge of the polling centre set up in the Uva Provincial Sports and Youth and Womens Affairs Ministry premises was supervising postal balloting without the valid accreditation from the Elections Commissioner.

In Kegalle District several officers in Mawanella, who had registered for postal voting could not exercise their votes as their names were not included in the voters' lists.

A similar situation arose in Galagedara in the Kandy district too.

According to the information supplied by its monitors posters bearing the names of the main Presidential candidates were seen pasted around certain postal balloting centres while hand bills were also distributed among voters in certain other centres.

One important observation was that most of these incidents resulted due to administrative lapses rather than election malpractices.

A more comprehensive report on the postal balloting would be included in the final pre-election period report to be released shortly, PAFFREL said.