Sri Lanka election enters final week amid fear of violence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 March 2004, 12:29 GMT]
As independent poll monitors fear of an escalation in violence in the final week of campaigning for April 2 parliament elections, Police Election Secretariat reported Saturday that it has received 1113 complaints since the day of accepting nominations started on February 17 till Saturday morning 6 a.m.

The Police Election Secretariat said it received more than fifty percent of the complaints from the Amparai electoral district. In Amparai there is fierce contest between the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress led by Minister Mr.Rauff Hakim and the United Peoples Freedom Alliance led by the National Unity Alliance leader Ms Ferial Ashraff, is in full swing, sources said.

However not a single incident of election related violence has been reported from the Trincomalee district till Saturday morning, Senior Superintendent of Police Mr.Upali Hewage said. Except two incidents where election laws were flouted such as pasting posters, no incident of violence has been reported, he added.

Even in the 2001 December general election the Trincomalee district reported only about twenty election offences of violation of election laws such as pasting posters and distributing propaganda pamphlets, police said.