562 election related complaints so far - CaFFE

March 6, 2014  03:

The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) today said that it has received a combined total of 562 complaints pertaining to the forthcoming elections for the Western and Southern Provincial Councils. 

Ninety-six per cent of the complaints (538) are with regard to violations of election laws while 216 of them involve the misuse of public property, using state employees for electioneering, appointment and transfers during election period, it said.

The election watchdog further said that it has received 298 complaints regarding illegal election propaganda, which makes out for 53 per cent of the total complaints.  

Of the 24 complaints regarding election violence, 18 are incidents of assault and threatening while 06 of them are regarding the damaging property and Illegal election propaganda.

The highest percentage of complaints (58%) has been received from the Western Province (325) while a total of 221 complaints have been received from the Southern Province. 

Of the six electoral districts, the Colombo District has recorded the most number of complaints with 164 in total, according to CaFFE. 

However, the most number of incidents of election violence have taken place in the Hambantota District.