WikiLeaks: Both Gota And Basil Were At The Elections Commissioner’s Office – Mangala To US
By Colombo Telegraph -September 6, 2012
“Mangala argued that by obtaining the copies of the tally sheets and then comparing those totals sent by the districts to the totals announced in Colombo, it could be shown that changes were made. He also claimed they were trying to get statements from state employees working in the Elections Commissioner’s office, to provide evidence that both Basil and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were at the Commissioner’s offices while counting was going on and that results were changed there.” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.
“In a February 2 meeting with diplomatic heads of mission, leaders of the opposition including Ranil Wickremesinghe, General Fonseka, Mangala Samaraweera, and Ravi Karunanayake, argued their case that the election was rigged and cataloged a long list of government repressive actions against Fonseka, the media, and others. The opposition leaders claimed the election was ‘far from free and fair’ and entailed violations by the Rajapaksa government during the pre-election campaign, on voting day, and — most significantly — in the counting of ballots. (NOTE: Samaraweera provided further details on these accusations to PolOffs in a private meeting. See paragraphs 5 and 6 below. END NOTE.) On this basis, they said the election was a “complete fraud” and that they would be filing suit with the Supreme Court, though they confessed they had little faith in the court to rule in their favor, given its members were hand-picked byRajapaksa. General Fonseka also went into a long listing of complaints about his treatment by the government, including the arrest and detention of his personal security guards, raids on his office, inability to travel, and more.”
Under the subheading “MANGALA: RAJAPAKSA CHEATED, BUT STILL GATHERING THE PROOF” Butenis wrote “In a follow-up to the briefing by the joint opposition leaders on February 2 for the diplomatic community, PolCouns and PolOff met privately on February 3 with Mangala Samaraweera to probe further details on the opposition’s fraud case and political plans for the upcoming general election. Mangala repeated some of the arguments he had made to the diplomatic community the day before, focusing on what he believed was a pre-planned effort to intimidate the opposition representative observers at the ballot counting centers, coupled with adjustments to the vote totals as they came in to the main counting office of the Elections Commissioner in Colombo. He said the opposition was in the process of gathering affidavits from their observers, which would show many of them had been chased out of the counting centers by thugs prior to observing the final counts and receiving signed and certified tally sheets. Mangala argued that by obtaining the copies of the tally sheets and then comparing those totals sent by the districts to the totals announced inColombo, it could be shown that changes were made. He also claimed they were trying to get statements from state employees working in the Elections Commissioner’s office, to provide evidence that both Basil and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were at the Commissioner’s offices while counting was going on and that results were changed there.”
“When pressed, Mangala admitted that the legal route of contesting the election results was not likely to lead to an overturning of the election results. He cited a previous elections-related case, which took over three years to complete, and reconfirmed that Rajapaksa had too many friends on the Supreme Court to lose this case.” she further wrote.
Placing a comment the ambassador wrote “The opposition seems slow and disorganized in the wake of Rajapaksa’s victory. Although they think they have an idea of how Rajapaksa might have stolen the election — and are convinced that he did — they appear to have been disoriented as a group by the margin of the president’s victory (and thus the scale of fraud required) and by the full-scale harassment of Fonseka after election day. It appears that the president is moving ahead at full speed with his second-term planning and is likely to keep the opposition back on their heels if they do not recover and regroup quickly.”
