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UNP blames polls chief, plans petition against Mahinda
The UNP leadership will meet tomorrow to take a decision on a court petition against President Mahinda Rajapakse’s victory at Thursday’s presidential poll, UNP Deputy General Secretary Tissa Attanayake told The Sunday Times last night.

He said the failure to conduct a free and fair poll in the north and east and the refusal by the Commissioner of Elections to hold a re-poll in the areas where polling was affected, allegations of misuse of state property and the misuse of state media were among some of the points to be considered for the petition, he said.

The UNP accused Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake of failing to fulfill his promise that he would order a re-poll in any area if there was substantial evidence of intimidation or harassment of voters.
UNP sources said Mr. Dissanayake had made the promise several times after nomination and repeated it again last Monday when he met local and foreign journalists for a final briefing.

Before the commissioner officially announced the results and declared UPFA candidate Mahinda Rajapakse had been duly elected on Friday, UNP lawyers and officials handed over petitions to him asking for a re-poll in the north and east in view of evidence of widespread intimidation of voters to prevent them from casting their ballot.

But, the Commissioner told the delegation that he had no reports that voters in the north-east had been prevented from voting.
The UNP delegation said it had substantial evidence that hundreds of voters in LTTE-controlled areas were prevented from casting their ballots while there was such prevention and other forms of intimidation even in government-controlled areas of the north and east.

Mr. Dissanayake in announcing the final results live on TV said: “In the north and east, there is always an extraordinary situation which is not normal elsewhere in the island. This situation affects not only the Department of Elections but also the entire government machinery. So I had a special programme for the north during election time. Despite this, many in the north did not go to the polling stations”.

In pledging to order a re-poll in any areas where there was evidence of voter intimidation, the commissioner had said such a re-poll would be held yesterday.

UNP sources said its delegation had also cited a statement issued by PAFFREL, the main election-monitoring group, which gave specific instances where voters in the north and east were intimidated and prevented from voting.

In the petition to the commissioner, the UNP said it had good reason to believe that lakhs of people in the north and east would have voted for UNP candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe and if they had been allowed to vote, the ultimate results of the presidential election would have been different.

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