CAFFE INTERIM REPORT ON SRI LANKA NPC ELECTION 2013:SIGNS OF HOPE OVER THE BROKEN PALMYRAH TOWARDS A CIVIC ADMINISTRATION FOR THE NORTHERN PROVINCE

Northern Provincial Council Election 2013

 

It’s Historical

 

Establishing the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) will be a historical landmark in Sri Lankan political history. Residents of the North go to vote on September 21, 2013 after the end of 30 years of war and nearly four years of post war reconciliation attempts.  

 

Noting that any election held in the Northern Province has a significant impact on establishing a civic administration in the highly militarised region, Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) has been campaigning for a free and fair election in the North since the end of the war in May 2009. 

 

During the revision of the Voters’ Registry in 2012, CaFFE operatives played an important role in the revision process. They distributed applications and educated Northerners of the importance of voting. One of the main issues they noted while working in the Province was that a large number of eligible voters did not have valid documents of identification. Realising that this will cause a significant number of individuals to lose their voting franchise, CaFFE commenced an initiative to provide identity cards to the Northerners from August 2012 to February 2013. 

 

After the Northern Provincial Council elections were announced, CaFFE and its sister organisation Centre for Human Rights and Research (CHR) recommenced their mobile clinics to facilitate the issuing of identification documents with the assistance of the Department for Registration of Persons (DRP). Under this initiative CaFFE was able to facilitate applications for 36,514 National Identity Cards, Birth Certificates and other identification documents within 41 days. This programme was conducted with the Northern Provincial Council elections in mind. 

 

CaFFE officially commenced election monitoring in all five Districts in the Northern Province July 25, 2013 and this Report is based on what CaFFE observers have reported from that date until September 15, 2013.  CaFFE is the only election monitoring body that has coordination centres in every District in the North. In addition, it utilised the facilities and infrastructure of CHR, to help monitor the election. Detailed information of its activities and the incidents referred to in this Report can be found at http://www.caffesrilanka.org/ and http://www.chrsrilanka.com/. Some of the featured stories on the election were also published on http://lankafreedom.com/, a Rights based news website. 

 

As a responsible election monitoring organisation with a reputation for credibility CaFFE has only included complaints that could be verified. It has not included anonymous tips or statements made by individuals without any evidence. These are incidents investigated by 28 long-term observers and 43 field staff members on the ground who are independent and impartial. The information was backed by CHR’s ‘civil society network,’ the largest umbrella organisation for civil society organisations in the Province.                                                    more..>