Even offering a cup of tea to a voter may land candidates in trouble at future elections – Manjula Gajanayaka

Text and pictures by PRIYAN DE SILVA

National coordinator for the Center for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) Manjula Gajanayake says even offering a cup of tea to a voter could land candidates in trouble at future elections. Gajanayake said so referring to the election petition 01/2018 filed in the Uva Provincial High Court by W M Sunil Shantha Wanasinghe and the land mark judgment delivered by the Additional High Court Judge Monaragala on 13 September 2021

The election petition was filed on an initiative taken by the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) and the Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL). The National Coordinator of the CMEV Manjula Gajanayake and the Executive Director of PAFFREL Rohana Hettiarachchi were among the key witnesses for the petitioner S M Sunil Shantha Wanasinghe who contested the Maduruketiya ward of the Monaragala Pradeshiya Sabha on the UNP ticket at the Local Government poll held on 10th February 2018.

On the 22 of January 2018, the petitioner complained to the CMEV that D M Tharnga Harshaka Priya Prasad Dissanayaka contesting on the SLPP ticket for the Maduruketiya ward of the Monaragala PS was offering goods and services to voters as bribes during the election period in violation of the Local Government Ordinance.

After making impartial inquiries about the allegations through CMEV’s electorate based field observers, Gajanayake made a formal complaint to the Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL) and thereafter together with PAFFREL, assisted Sunil Shantha to take forward the legal process.

Delivering judgment, the learned Additional High Court Judge R S A Dissanayaike held that the defendant has violated provisions of the Local Government Ordinance and therefore should be unseated.

Gajanayake said that usually all the election observation missions deployed around 15,000 observers at any election in Sri Lanka and for the 2018 LG election the CMEV and PAFFREL had deployed nearly 9,000 static observers and another 300 electorate-based field observers.

Gajanayake stressed that the CMEV and PAFFREL were not satisfied with the manner in which the post-election complaints were handled by both the ECSL and the Sri Lanka police as no action had been taken to inquire into even the 55 or so complaints the ECSL had forwarded to the Police.

“If the Election Commission and the Sri Lanka Police had d acted on the nearly 1000 election related complaints made by the CMEV and PAFFREL during the last parliamentary election, some present day Members of Parliament and even ministers would have been unseated. I hope that at least in the future, the ECSL will ensure that the Police take action ” Gajanayake said.