• The EC has issued a comprehensive set of guidelines and code of conduct to be followed by the media, the political parties and candidates and added violators would be dealt with severely under the law

By Sandun A Jayasekera

The Local Government (LG) polls will be held on a week day before March 10 and the exact date is to be announced this Saturday (21) by District Returning Officers (DROs) after the conclusion of accepting nominations, Chairman of the Elections Commission (EC) Nimal G Punchihewa said yesterday.    

The LG polls, 2023 could probably be held in the second week of March, 2023.   

Responding to the controversy on election expenses, Punchihewa said funding the LG polls is not an issue as most of the election related payments are made after the election.   
“We have enough money to manage the election related expenses right now. The EC needs about Rs.5 billion to conclude the election. We expect to restrict the total election expenditure to less than Rs.8 billion. This will not be a problem as the budget 2023 has allocated Rs. 10 billion for the EC in a special vote in Parliament,” Punchihewa told Daily Mirror.
Punchihewa expressed his regret and disappointment over a deluge of half-baked, fabricated and totally baseless news planted in the mainstream and social media to sabotage the LG polls and the EC.   

The so-called yellow journalism was active at its best from the very beginning when the EC started preliminary work on the strength of its constitutional and official obligations to conduct the LG polls. First they tried to extend the election by highlighting various ruses. Then they brought the delimitation issue and finally the financial issue. The closest example to these covert attempts is the media reports that said the police chief, Chandana Wickramaratne had informed the EC that it was difficult to deploy policemen for election duty as the EC had not settled the Police Department its dues for the election duty in the past.   

“This is totally incorrect. The IG did not raise any financial issue with the EC officials at the discussion we had with him last week,” Punchihewa stressed.