Low turnout of voting, people disinterested in election in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 April 2010, 09:43 GMT]
Around 11:00 a.m Thursday only 4.29% persons eligible to vote had cast their votes in Jaffna while after 2:00 p.m there was a slight increase. However, only 10% of the total registered voters had cast their votes in Jaffna electorate by afternoon, Jaffna Secretariat officials said. People were seen disinterested in the parliamentary election and the general atmosphere in the peninsula was peaceful without any considerable election violence, sources in Jaffna said.

Meanwhile, Minister Rizad Badudeen’s supporters in Vavuniyaa had taken away the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) buses meant to transport voters from the detention centres in Vavuniyaa to Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu district preventing them from voting. They had also obstructed Vavuniyaa Secretariat officials who tried to arrange private vehicles, sources in Vavuniyaa said.

Even the small number of uprooted persons in the Vanni detention centres taken to vote in vehicles, found to their dismay that they had been taken to the wrong polling centres instead of the centres where they were supposed to vote.

The above voters, for whom arrangement was made to vote in Nedungkea'ni, Odduchchuddaan and Ki’linochchi, could not cast their votes.