The campaign for Free and Fair Elections:The Rajapaksa administration was rapidly moving towards a one party dictatorial regime...!!!

NGO warns of road map to dictatorial regime.............by Shamindra Ferdinando

The campaign for Free and Fair Elections yesterday said that the Rajapaksa administration was rapidly moving towards a one party dictatorial regime. The election monitoring NGO asserted that having provincial council elections on a staggered basis was part of the ruling coalition’s strategy of throttling the Opposition, thereby denying the people a fair opportunity to effect a regime change.

Addressing a press conference at the National Library Services Board, Dr. Nimalka Fernando accused the government of implanting a road map for a dictatorial regime. She said that in the absence of an Independent Elections Commission and the government’s refusal to implement the 17th Amendment to the Constitution elections would be a farce.

She said though there hadn’t been many incidents of violence in the Uva as well as Jaffna and Vavuniya where local government elections, too, would be held on August 8, the election process wasn’t definitely free and fair. She accused the government of brazenly using flouting elections laws. "State resources and public officers are being used in support of government candidates," she said. A few days before nominations for the Jaffna Municipal Council they had targeted the Jaffna based Udayan press. She said that Opposition had been effectively silenced in an environment of fear created by the government. The bottom line is that there was no level playing field, she said emphasising that they weren’t biased towards any party.

While severely criticising current security measures in place, particularly in the Jaffna peninsula and suffering of 300,000 people held by the government, she welcomed the fielding of several women candidates by the Tamil National Alliance (4 candidates), UNP (3) and UPFA (1) in Jaffna.

Although Keerthi Tennakoon also of the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections claimed that there had been a systematic campaign of terror unleashed by the government in support of its candidates, he failed to back his statement with facts. Responding to The Island queries, he said that there hadn’t been any major incidents in Vavuniya, Jaffna and Moneragala though there had been several incidents in the Badulla district. He acknowledged that most incidents reported from Badulla involved supporters of the ruling party.

Unlike in the South, there hadn’t been polythene decorations in the north. They called for an immediate release of civilians held by the government and relaxation of existing security measures. Asked whether security measures could be totally removed in the immediate future without taking into consideration the threat posed by LTTE terrorists taking refuge among the civilians, Tennkoon said, "Dan LTTE eka nehe" (Now there was no LTTE).

He said that among the 300,000 people in detention, there were about 350 persons eligible to vote at Jaffna and Vavuniya polls.



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