33,000 monitors to be on duty on SL presidential poll day

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 October 2005, 06:09 GMT]
About 33 000 international and local monitors are to be deployed on the presidential election day in all parts of the Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, the Centre For Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) is holding discussion with the Department of Election to request international monitors of SAARC countries, sources said.

People's Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) will deploy 22 000 local monitors. The Centre For Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) will deploy 5000 monitors, election department sources said.

The PAFFREL will organise a workshop to train and brief monitors who are currently deployed in districts on 11 and 12 November in Colombo, sources said.

Twenty teams of international monitors are expected to arrive in Colombo on 10 November from United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Ghana, Uruguay, Japan and Holland.

Twenty international monitors from the Non-Violence Peace Force (NVPF) arrived in Colombo last week. NVPF, international organization has already deployed its members in twenty-two districts in the island with a translator and a PAFFREL monitor.