Postal voters asked to reveal votes before voting

Alleging that there are blatant violations of election laws by public officials, General Secretary of the Ceylon Independent Teacher’s Union, Joseph Stalin, yesterday said that they had come to know that monitoring officials, such as army personnel and teachers, some of whom are unqualified, would request postal voters to disclose whom they were voting for before allowing them to cast it.

Stating that it robs the voter’s independence and transgresses election laws, Mr. Stalin said that a formal complaint in writing has been lodged with the Elections Commissioner to remedy this perilous situation immediately. “More than 540,000 people are to participate in postal voting, and as always there are public officials who oversee this process. But there is a situation where the voters have been asked to show their votes before casting it, this is unacceptable because it prevents one from voting independently” Mr. Stalin said.

He further stated that adding to a host of violations the education minister of the Southern Province had appointed a hundred and seventy five persons functioning as volunteers as assistant teachers along with several others. “Many appointments were made between December 5-15, and amongst these was the appointment of 175 assistant teachers, which is a clear violation of election laws as well as any laws relating to teacher services. This is clearly done in order to persuade these persons to vote in favour of the incumbent President. We have written to the Elections Commissioner to take action as soon as possible,” he said.