Local elections likely to be postponed

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 February 2011, 23:44 GMT]
Sri Lankan Department of Elections has said it was considering requests made by political parties to postpone the local elections until hundreds of thousands of families displaced due to recent floods are resettled and resume their day to day normal life in their villages and towns.

The main opposition United National Party (UNP), Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) have requested the SL Commissioner of Elections for a postponement of local elections as the prevailing situation is not conducive to election related activities.

The SL Commissioner of Elections is shortly to meet the leaders of all political parties to take a final decision on this matter, media sources in Colombo said.

In the meantime, Indika Gunawardena, SL Deputy Minister of Local Government and Provincial Government said Thursday that his government is yet to take a final decision and if the current adverse weather continues the election scheduled to be held on March 17 would be postponed.

Many displaced families have lost their identity cards to prove their identity to vote.

The SL Election Department has asked flood victims to apply for temporary NICs through respective Village Officers.

When nominations were filed for the local elections last month, the nomination papers of Rajapaksa's UPFA in collaboration with the EPDP paramilitary-cum-political party were rejected in Jaffna and Ki'linochchil by the election officer who could not ignore the objection raised by the TNA on the irregularities in the nomination papers.