Weekly Selection/SRI LANKA: Ruling Party Win Marred by Violence

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Jan 30 1999 (IPS) - Sri Lanka’s ruling People’s Alliance has emerged victorious in elections for the northwestern Provincial Council, but the poll has been marred by unprecedented levels of violence.

An independent monitoring group, which included women for the first time, reported widespread violence and intimidation of voters at polling stations on Monday by supporters of the People’s Alliance.

“It (election day) was frightening, it was absolute terror,” one woman monitor told IPS. At least two people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between rival political parties in the run-up to the election.

Nearly 1.4 million people were eligible to vote, but the violence kept most people indoors and soon after polling ended the police clamped a curfew, fearing an escalation of the violence.

Opposition UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe has called for the cancellation of the election. “This is absurd … ridiculous,” he told a news conference. “The president (Chandrika Kumaratunga) has trampled on the rights of the people.”

The citizen’s group People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections said the poll was “irretrievably flawed” and urged the Election Commissioner, Dayananda Dissanayake, to call for a fresh election and ensure fair and free voting.

On Monday night President Chandrika Kumaratunga requested Dissanayake to cancel the poll in some areas where she said she had heard of large-scale malpractices. She did not identity the perpetrators.

Women monitors, who agreed to talk only if they were not identified, said they were shocked by the level of violence. “How can women contest polls if there is this kind of intimidation,” said a monitor who visited 25 polling stations at Kuliyapitiya, about 100 km north of Colombo.

She said at some polling booths, she and the two other women in their group of six monitors, were afraid to get out of the vehicle because of the presence of armed gunmen wearing blue caps – the ruling party colour. At one polling station, gunmen fired shots into the air, forcing the monitors to flee without stopping.

Results of 15 electorates announced by early Tuesday showed a clean sweep by the People’s Alliance which has even won in areas which the opposition UNP are reportedly strong.

Voting in nine polling stations in the northwest districts of Kurunegala and Puttalam was cancelled by the Election Commission because of “rigging and impersonation”. Some 446 candidates representing seven parties and four independent groups were in the race for the 52-member Provincial Council.

The poll was viewed as a test of the government’s popularity ahead of elections to five other provincial councils expected in the next few months and in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary polls that are due next year.

Before the polls, political analysts said a victory for the ruling party could bolster President Kumaratunga’s attempts to push through a plan for ending the 15-year-old ethnic war by granting greater autonomy to the provinces.

Both the People’s Action group and the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) had together recorded nearly 800 cases of election related violence in the run-up to voting day.

Two cases of some men and women supporters of the UNP being forced to walk naked on the road, allegedly by PA supporters, were also reported in Kurunegala district by the two groups.

CMEV said monitors and opposition activists had reported of organised election violence and malpractices by the ruling party. “The allegations include opposition polling agents being forcibly thrown out of polling booths, stuffing of ballot boxes and opposition voters being prevented from voting by groups of armed supporters deployed by the PA”, it said in a statement Monday.

People’s Actions group spokesman Kingsley Rodrigo said their monitors visited dozens of polling stations. About 600 of the 1,400 monitors were women.

“We wanted to see how the climate was for women to get involved in politics. Women can get involved only if there is a peaceful environment,” commented Janaki Gunawardene, president of the Business & Professional Women of Sri Lanka which sent six members as monitors.

Women monitors of the group included school and university teachers, lawyers, human rights activists, academics and businesswomen. Most were from the rural areas of the north west where the election was held.

Gunawardene said that it was hard to get women to volunteer as monitors. “Given the level of violence during the run-up to the poll, most women were frightened and their families too advised them not to be involved though they were supportive of our efforts,” she said.

Women account for 51 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 18 million people but are under-represented in Parliament and other legislative bodies.