Lakhs of Lankan Tamils may not vote election

COLOMBO: Lakhs of Tamils of North Sri Lanka may not cast their vote in the upcoming preside­ntial election because of lack of identity cards or due to la­ck of interest, given the trauma they underwent during the war and as refugees in ca­mps ringed by barbed wire.

As per official estimates maximum 10,000 Tamil refugees have registered to vote and this is far below the total refugee voting population of 200,000.

“We did distributed application forms to the refugees in the camps and also instru­cted the local authorities to distribute them among the refugees, who are not residing in the camps. But so far, only 10,000 have filled in the form,” said P S M Charles, Government Agent of Vavu­niya, which has the largest number of camp refugees.

“All we can do is to distribute the forms. We cannot force them to fill them in,” she told Express on Sunday.

The Sunday Times had reported that local officials in the North were moving in the matter slowly, though the Commissioner of Electi­ons had said that temporary ID cards must be issued by December 24. The work in Sinhalese-dominated South Sri Lanka, on the other hand, has been going on at a faster pace. In order to speed up the process, the government had ordered the Agriculture Department officials to issue 1.5 million temporary IDs, though as per law only the Grama Niladharis could do it. The Opposition camp led by Gen Sarath Fonseka had objected to this procedure.

Reports from the North say that the Tamils there are not interested in the electi­ons, since both Mahinda Raj­ap­aksa and Fonseka are identified as hard core Sinhalese nationalists. But, of the two, Fonseka is seen in a slightly more favourable light becau­se he is backed by the peacen­ik United National Party lea­der, Ranil Wickremesinghe.

However, the Rajapaksa and the Fonseka camps are making efforts to woo the Tamils. While Fonseka says that he will devolve power beyond what is contained in the 13th Amendment and has said that the Rajapaksa government had ordered the killing three top LTTE leaders who were going to surre­nder, the Rajapaksa government has said that all restrictions on the movement between the Tamil North and the Sinhalese South will be lifted forthwith.

Courtesy
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