President’s Media Division: Announcing President’s political campaign rallies abuse state resources – EC, PAFFREL

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana  

The President Media Division, the official portal to announce the President’s decisions, activities and news updates would violate the election law and abuse state resources if the former announces President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s public campaigns in the run-up to the poll, the Election Commission and polls monitoring bodies said.   

People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) yesterday said that they have received a complaint against the President’s Media Division (PMD) for announcing to the media and requesting coverage about an upcoming public rally of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, which is to be held in Galle tomorrow.   

The PMD through its network of designated WhatsApp alert groups to notify the local media about the news and activities of the President had requested coverage yesterday to a public gathering to be held in Galle Municipal Grounds on Saturday, July 27 at 3.00pm under the theme ‘Ekwa Jayagamu – Api Galle’ (Let’s win together – We are Galle).   

A communiqué sent by the PMD yesterday afternoon had informed the media groups to be present at the said venue by 2.00pm tomorrow and had asked to provide the names and NIC numbers of the journalists, media teams before 6.00pm yesterday.   

Executive Director PAFFREL Rohana Hettiarachchi told the Daily Mirror that they have received a complaint about this event against the PMD requesting media coverage to the said public rally is an offence pertaining to the abuse of state resources.   

“PMD is a state mechanism to inform the local and foreign media in Sri Lanka about the daily official updates and news of the President and it cannot give publicity or request coverage to any election campaign by the President as a candidate or his party as a contesting party in the run-up to an election.   

This seems to be the second of a series of public rallies, which are to be held in the near future, whilst the first was held in Gampaha last Sunday under the theme ‘Ekwa Jayagamu – Api Gampaha People’s Rally’. We will further monitor this incident and take action to report the complaint to the Election Commission,” Hettiarachchi said.   

When contacted, Commissioner General of Elections Saman Sri Ratnayake told the Daily Mirror that the media units or divisions affiliated to the state bodies, President, Prime Minister or Ministers should not use their resources to give or request private publicity to their superiors during an election, which is an offence.   

“Misappropriation or private use of public property has been established as a criminal offence under the offense against the Public Property Act, No.12 of 1982. We will look into this complaint and take relevant action,” Ratnayake said.