According to elections officials, only 1 in 9 persons classed as internally displaced had heeded the call to register to vote in the January 26 presidential elections by the deadline.
Although 200,000 IDPs were on the 2008 electoral register, only 22,000 submitted applications to vote in the upcoming election prompting election officials in the north to hold a special meeting with the Elections Commissioner, according to Sunday Times newspaper in Sri Lanka.
According to the newspaper, election monitoring groups are blaming the Commissioner and political parties for not taking effective steps to encourage IDPs to vote and have demanded to extend the deadline to give those who missed the opportunity to apply.
Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) spokesman Keerthi Tennekoon said there had been little or no voter education for more than three decades in some parts of the north and people did not know the importance of voting, reported the Sunday Times.
He further said the main opposition parties the UNF and the JVP had not conducted campaigns in
“We have received reports that certain parties were not allowed to visit the camps”. Mr. Tennekoon was quoted as saying.
A Tamil political analyst commenting on the IDPs’ lack of interest in the upcoming election said the poor voter registration is a clear indication that Tamils have no appetite for an election at a time when they are struggling to piece together their lives shattered by a genocidal war and forced internment.
An election would be the last thing in mind for the IDPs who live in fear under military and armed paramilitary occupation with human rights abuses accepted as part of life, he further added.
