Civil leaders want polling stations in LTTE held areas
[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 October 2004, 15:52 GMT]
Parliamentarians and representatives of civil groups Saturday at a discussion held at the YMCA Hall in Jaffna, on the proposed electoral reforms, requested that polling stations be located in the Liberation Tigers held areas in the northeast province in any future parliamentary and other elections, civil sources said. The discussion was organized by PAFFREL, an election-monitoring organizationwhich has its headquarters in Colombo.
The discussion was organized to obtain views from a cross-section of the Jaffna society as a prelude to prepare its
recommendations to be submitted to the proposed Electoral Reforms Committee, sources said. Jaffna district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians
Mr.M.K.Sivajilingam and Mr.Mavai Senathirajah and representatives from local civil groups participated in the discussion and expressed their views on future electoral reforms, sources said. Among several suggestions made at the discussion participants were unanimously expressed that if the future general elections are to be free and fair, polling stations should be located in the LTTE held areas in the province enabling voters there to exercise the franchise independently, civil sources said. PAFFREL (People's Action for Free and Fair Elections) is an umbrella organization which enjoys the unique distinction of having been the first ever citizen-based Election watch in Sri Lanka. It was formed by a group of NGOs in 1987 to monitor the Presidential Election of December 1988. Since then it has monitored all the major elections held in Sri Lanka.
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