PAFFREL to deploy 3,000 observers to ensure transparency at upcoming General Election

By Leenah Wahab  

Around 3,000 stationary observers are to be deployed on Election  Day, and roughly 1,000 observers will be monitoring postal voting,  PAFFREL said yesterday.  

Executive Director of the People’s Action for Free and Fair  Elections (PAFFREL) Rohana Hettiarachchi, said PAFFREL aims to monitor  the General Election similarly to how it handled the Presidential Election and are providing training staff to effectively observe and  report on the process. “Following nominations, we (PAFFREL) will deploy  116 to 200 observers at each electoral division. In addition, we have  set up field coordinators in each district as well as a complaint  mitigation centre working with the election commission,” he said.  

Mr. Hettiarachchi further said 350 mobile teams are yet to  be deployed, with one team carrying four observers which comes to around 1,400  observers. There will also be 300 counting observers stationed at each  counting centre to ensure that the tallying process is conducted  transparently without irregularity. Social media monitoring will also be  monitored by a joint team between Hashtag Generation and PAFFREL, with  daily reports being issued to the Election Commission.  

When asked how PAFFREL will monitor campaign financing for  the upcoming election given the large number of candidates, Mr.  Hettiarachchi said PAFFREL is in negotiations with other civil society  organisations to set up collective monitoring factions.  

Furthermore, PAFFREL has sent a special request letter to  the Election Commission to investigate complaints filed during the  recent Presidential Election and provide a comprehensive report of the  cases to the public.  
Moreover, Mr. Hettiarachchi said PAFFREL is open for  parties to train polling agents. “Party polling agents were trained  during the Presidential Election as well,” he said. PAFFREL will  simultaneously be running voter education programmes on social and  mainstream media to inform new voters.