Diriya cries foul over election monitoring

By Madhushala Senaratne

The Diriya Foundation, a human rights organization which has monitored 11 previous elections, is yet to be given approval by the Department of Elections to monitor the upcoming provincial elections in the East, its secretary Lionel Gulawita said.

He said the unusual delay in granting approval could be interpreted that the Elections Commissioner was favouring some.“The Elections Department is trying to find fault with us and hand over the monopoly to one monitoring organization,” Mr. Gulawita alleged, adding that this was the case at every elections. He said that Diriya Foundation had a good track record since it started elections monitoring in 1998.

According to Mr. Gulawita the organization had sent its report on the recently-concluded local council elections in the Batticaloa District to the Commissioner in March as requested by him. The Commissioner had even acknowledged that he had received the report, he said.

“Usually, a few days after we hand over the monitoring report, the Commissioner gives us permission to monitor the elections. However, this time we have still not got the approval,” he said. Mr. Gulawita also alleged that for every election, foreign donors give some 30 to 40 million rupees for election monitoring but much of this money went to one particular group.

A spokesman for the Department of Elections said the department has not granted approval to Diriya, but assured a decision would be taken soon.