Election monitoring NGOs meet public

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 January 1998, 23:59 GMT]
The seven member team of the two election monitoring NGOs which is currently in Jaffna to study the situation there before gearing up for the monitoring work on January 29, met with a cross section of civilians today to ascertain their views on the Jaffna local polls.

A TamilNet correspondent also accompanied the team. The election monitors met people in Jaffna town, Paashaiyoor, Gurunagar, Navanthurai, Sinnakadai, Kokkuvil, Thinnevely, Urumpirai and Kalviankaadu.

Most of the people whom the monitoring team said that this is not the right time to hold the elections. Many said they would damage their ballot papers to register their protest.

Some fishermen told the team that their families would starve if they wasted time on voting on January 29.

Some white collar workers had expressed the view that there might be a change before the elections and hence they would wait and see before coming to a decision.

The seven member election monitoring Committee comprising two Sri Lankan NGO networks - the Peoples Action for Free and Fair Election (PAFFREL) and Movement for Free and Fair Election (MFFE)- flew to Jaffna on Friday, to work out the preliminaries for monitoring the elections on January 29.

No foreign observers are to monitor the elections.