Commissioner allows 10 local monitoring groups to observe elections

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 March 2010, 17:34 GMT]
People’s Action for Free and Fair Election (PAFFREL) and the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) have been given clearance by the Commissioner of Elections to enter the polling stations and have their observers in the polling stations on the day of the elections. Eight more organizations are allowed by the Commissioner of Elections, to have their agents in polling stations.

They are: Democratic Action for Free and Fair Elections (DAFFE), Centre for Protecting Human Rights (CPHR), Organization for Professional Association (OPA), Sepco Janatha Sanvidanaya (SJS), National Polls Observation Centre(NPOC), Network to Election Monitoring(NEM), Centre for Monitoring Free and Fair Elections and Democracy (CMFFED) and the Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFe).

However, the Elections Secretariat has not taken any decision about foreign election observers as the request from opposition parties came late, department sources said.

Meanwhile, 415, 419 state sector employees are eligible to cast their votes on March 25 and 26. Of the total number of applications for postal voting 61,691 applications were rejected, election department sources said.