S.Lankan election chief says serious malpractice absent in polls

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 04, 2004

S.Lankan election chief says serious malpractice absent in polls

Sri Lanka's Election Chief said Saturday that Friday's parliamentary poll in the country was free of major malpractice.

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Sri Lanka's Election Chief said Saturday that Friday's parliamentary poll in the country was free of major malpractice.

Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake said no incidents of ballot stuffing, snatching of ballot boxes had taken place although there had been a few incidents of voter intimidation.

Responding to allegations of large scale impersonation in the northern Jaffna peninsula, Dissanayake said that the complaints have been of a general nature than being specific.

An independent election monitoring group has called for the annulment of poll in Jaffna following complaints of impersonation from contestants.

The declaration of the final result may be held back by a week if the political parties agreed with Dissanayake on Sunday to order a re-poll in respect of two polling stations in the eastern Digamadulla district and the central Kandy district.

Friday's election was the most peaceful election in Sri Lanka'srecent history and the usual practice of imposing election day night curfew and the following day curfew was thus not resorted to.

The main opposition United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) ledby President Chandrika Kumaratunga had taken a comfortable lead over its main rival the United National Party (UNP) led by incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Kumaratunga's UPFA had garnered 47.2 percent of the vote by Saturday evening and annexed nine of the 22 electoral districts whose final results had been declared by then.

Wickremesinghe's UNP was lagging behind at 37.9 percent, managing to win just one of the officially declared districts.

Source: Xinhua

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