News

News

Top priority to allocation of preference numbers
By Shelani Perera
Elections Department officials are working round the clock to complete the allocation of preference numbers to around 25,000 candidates who have sought nomination for the forthcoming local government polls.

The Department has put on hold all other work to complete the allocation of numbers to the candidates contesting seats in 330 local bodies . Faced with the daunting task of completing the allocation of numbers by Friday, Department staff were able to allot preference numbers in only 15 Districts.
Although there was no deadline set for the task the Elections Department had targeted to complete it by Friday evening.

An Elections Department official told The Sunday Times that priority has been given to the allocation of the numbers. “The allocation of numbers is very time consuming, as there are 25,000 candidates. It has to be done very carefully. Once a number is allocated we have to make sure it is gazetted in all three languages.

We cannot start printing the ballot papers until we complete this task. Designing of the ballot paper can be done only once the numbers are allocated,” he said.

Although Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake told contesting political parties that he would arrange a weekly meeting with party secretaries to discuss problems faced by the parties in the run-up to the polls, the meetings have been put on hold due to the inability to complete allocating the preference numbers.

“Once this task is completed we will look into how we are going to monitor the law relating to posters and cut-outs which are already on public display.
The security aspect is also another important feature we have to look into” an official said.

Top

Back to News