Lowest number of votes registered in Jaffna electoral district

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 April 2010, 18:31 GMT]
Only 18 to 20 percent of the voters in Jaffna electoral district cast their votes in the parliamentary elections Thursday recording the lowest in island, while the voting percentage in the whole country was from 52 to 55 percent, according to Election Monitoring Agencies. Jaffna electoral district, compared to other electoral districts, recorded the lowest turn over of voters where voting percentage in Thenmaraadchi was higher than that of Vadamaraadchi while voting was very low in the islets of Jaffna, the sources said. Compared to the recent presidential election where the voting was low the voting turn out was even less in the parliamentary election in Jaffna electoral district.

Sri Lanka government has ordered the District Election Officers not to pass any information related to the voting officially. It is learnt that Colombo Election Head Office will give out this information.

Electorate	Eligible voters	Polled
Kayts	53111	9428
Uduppiddi	56426	10937
Point Pedro	48613	8051
Chavakachcheari	65141	14289
Vaddukkoaddai	63911	16605
Nalloor	72558	13055
KKS	69082	11421
Manippaay	71114	15386
Koappaay	65798	12600
Jaffna	64714	9006
Ki'linochchi	88474	9816
Total	719022	130594 (18.16%)

Ampaa’rai district in the East recorded the highest percentage (58 to 60) of voting while in Batticaloa the turn over was 56 to 58 percent.

Trincomalee district recorded 45 to 50 percent of votes while in Vanni district there was 25 to 30 percent votes registered.

In Vanni the uprooted civilians held in the detention centres in Vavuniyaa were subjected to harassment purposely aimed at preventing them from voting, sources in Vavuniyaa said.

Former Minster Risard Badudeen’s (UPFA) men openly carried out the above obstruction by forcibly taking away the buses meant to transport the Vanni voters to the cluster polling centres in Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts.

They further threatened the owners of private vehicles which government officials had arranged to transport the voters.

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.

Chronology: