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All logistical arrangements in place for LG polls, say officials and monitors
View(s):Over 70, 000 candidates will be contesting from 4877 wards and results will be issued by each ward
By Sandun Jayawardana
Authorities and election monitors are making final preparations for the 2025 local government elections, with polls set to open at 7 a.m islandwide on Tuesday (6).
Voting for the elections will begin at 7 a.m. and close at 4 p.m. District Returning Officers, along with Grama Niladhari Officers and other officials, have made arrangements for voting to take place at 13, 759 polling centres across the country, Commissioner General of Elections Saman Sri Ratnayake told the Sunday Times.
Over 70, 000 candidates will be contesting from 4877 wards and results will be issued by each ward. The winner of each ward will be announced at a selected main counting centre in the division in which the ward is situated.
Preparations have also been made for the District Returning Officers in the 25 districts to announce the results in their respective district.
Logistical arrangements for the issuing of ballot boxes and for taking charge of them have also been completed. Transport arrangements too have been finalised, Mr. Ratnayake further said.
About 65, 000 of the Police Department’s total strength of 73,000 officers will be deployed for election duties, Police Spokesman Senior Superintendent (SSP) Buddhika Manatunga stated. Aside from armed officers deployed to guard polling centres, mobile units will also be deployed, with each unit covering several centres. Special Task Force (STF) personnel too will be deployed at certain locations while riot squads will also be on standby.
Notably there have been no major incidents of election violence since the handing over of nominations. Police however, will be prepared to meet any eventuality, the SSP added.
Since the commencement of nominations on March 3, police had received 524 complaints of election law violations. A total of 43 candidates and 190 supporters had been arrested for violating election law from March 3 up until yesterday, with 41 vehicles also taken into police custody.
Meanwhile, election monitors have made preparations to deploy their monitors for the poll. The People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) has already deployed 160 long-term observers based on electoral divisions, the organization’s Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi said. In addition, PAFFREL has set up a complaint mitigation unit at its headoffice and has informed political parties to send their complaints to the office.
PAFFREL has also been carrying out social media monitoring over the past few weeks in collaboration with the Hashtag Generation organisation, deploying 30 social media observers to monitor social media for misinformation and disinformation related to the elections, with at least one person being assigned to monitor each district. Mr. Hettiarachchi said they have forwarded about 600 complaints related to social media to the Election Commission.
On Election Day, the organisation plans to deploy 2300 stationary observers. They will be carrying out observation work at both polling and counting centres.
PAFFREL will also deploy about 200 mobile teams to observe outside the polling centres. These teams will consist of about four observers in each vehicle, bringing it to about 800 observers in total. “We are planning to cover more than 60 per cent of the polling centres through our mobile and stationary observers,” Mr. Hettiarachchi stressed.
The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) will be deploying monitors to 75 selected local government entities across the country, covering all 25 districts, the organisation’s Chief Operations Officer Prof. Arjuna Parakrama told the Sunday Times. Altogether, the CMEV plans to deploy about 1000 monitors in those entities. “We have picked these 75 local authorities in terms of where we think there will be issues based on our preliminary observations. We’ll also be having mobile teams that will be going around troubleshooting and identifying areas of difficulty,” he explained.
The CMEV’s secretariat will also function as a central location where information will be relayed by its mobile teams and static observers based at polling centres. There will also be coordinators in each area who will be moving around the centres under their local government authority.
Prof. Parakrama said election monitoring organisations are trying to ensure there is a division of labour in terms of their resources to make sure they don’t overlap with one another, enabling election monitors to cover the entire country.
| Get to know your candidates, digitally The Election Commission (EC) has introduced a new digital service titled ‘Know Your Candidate’ for voters to easily access their relevant candidate list for the 2025 local government election. Accordingly, voters can visit the EC’s website, https://eservices.elections.gov.lk and click on the ‘For Citizens’ tab and then go to ‘Voter Registration Details.’ From there, they need to enter their NIC details, and afterwards, click on the ‘Voter Registration Details for Election – Local Authorities Election – 2025.’ Once there, voters will see a section titled ‘KYC’ at the bottom. Clicking on this section will take the voter to a section listing the party / independent group candidates contesting for their local authority. | |
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