Sri Lanka Presidential; opposition candidate likely to be arrested

(January 27, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Soon after the first result of the presidential of Sri Lanka was out, the following news was posted in a local website.

A large group of Army personnel encircled Trans Asia Hotel a short while ago and are carrying out checking on the foreign and local guests in the hotel, say reports.

According to reports the raid is being carried out assuming apolitical Common Candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka is residing here.

As a result of the raid the guests in the hotel have been subjected to great inconvenience say sources.

Another pro-Fonseka website reported that the raid is carried out by a group led by a Major of the Army Special Forces. The troops have arrived the scene in two trucks and three motorcycles.

Our sources say that Sarath Fonseka and his supporters are staying in this hotel. 

In the postal votes results released so far Rajapaksa is ahead. Postal votes are cast by public servants and security forces members who are on election duty.

The result of the presidential of Sri Lanka needs to be rejected

(January 26, Colombo - Lanka Polity) It is a dire need to reject the result of the 2010 presidential of Sri Lanka irrespective of whomever the winner. 

Polls rigging and violence can be less in Sinhala dominated areas. The ruling party lacked support for polls rigging at the grassroots level. There were people to vote to Rajapaksa but few were ready to engage in violence before a probable loss.  

However, the government which was launching a racist campaign for the President Mahinda Rajapaksa during the final week was unashamed to block transport to the Northern Province internally displaced persons to travel to their villages to cast their vote. There was a rumor earlier that most of the buses permitted to ply on the newly opened A-9 highway either belonged to a senior government official with political patronage or paying ransom to him. Anyhow, the buses pledged for the IDPs to travel to Jaffna have been mysteriously disappeared, says opposition member of parliament Vijitha Herath. The MP was even detained by police for few hours as he attempted to address the voter grievances and solve the transport issue. Many more frauds of this sort can be expected to be reported in the coming hours. 

However, real rigging took place prior to the election. The President and his campaigners were daring to break all election regulations and to manipulate almost all the public property for Mahinda Rajapaksa's campaign. This went on to the extent that the Election Commissioner also had to annul the mandate of the competent authority he appointed to monitor state media. Ministry secretaries and other department heads disregarded more than 100 circulars issued by the election Commissioner. The poor public official eventually lamented about the situation and said he would resign following the presidential poll. 

Amidst this situation too, the election is so tense that opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka has a chance to win. Although, Mahinda Rajapaksa wins the election, he needs to achieve at least 60% of votes to proclaim it a real victory since he manipulated all state his powers to block the opposition.

This election is not a fair one in any sense. We, as democratic citizens of this country need to reject its result irrespective of whatever the result. We need to fight for free and fair elections. Elections of this sort must be rejected. The perpetrators of the malpractices must be brought to books and their civil rights should be suspended.

Alarming Abuse of State Media Ahead of Sri Lanka Elections

(January 23, Colombo - Lanka Polity) The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is greatly concerned that state-owned media in Sri Lanka has acted with extreme partisanship in the run-up to the country’s presidential election on January 26.

This contravenes a ruling from the country’s highest judiciary and is in defiance of the directives of the Commissioner for Elections.

The IFJ learns with alarm that the Commissioner for Elections has cancelled the mandate of the “Competent Authority” designated to monitor compliance with basic norms of fairness in all state-controlled media institutions during the election process.

He has also announced his intention to resign after the election, following widespread defiance of his rulings by government agencies.

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s principal opponent, Sarath Fonseka, asked the Supreme Court early this month to order state-owned media to follow basic norms of fair coverage. The direction was issued but has been unheeded.

At the same time, there have been increasing reports of violence breaking out in the course of the election campaign, with media personnel targeted by both sides.

“With polling day just four days away, it may be too late for state-owned media to correct the biases in a manner that would make a meaningful difference,” IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said.

“But we do expect the President to explicitly disavow the blatant partisanship that the state-owned media has exhibited and to distance himself from the violence that has been inflicted on media personnel.”

The IFJ’s recently released report of a press freedom mission to Sri Lanka recommends among other things that specific norms on fair and non-partisan coverage for the presidential elections be implemented well before polling day.

Sri Lanka’s five main professional bodies of journalists also petitioned the Government to enforce such a code of conduct well before the election.

“The IFJ regrets that these perfectly reasonable democratic demands have gone unheeded,” White said.

“Unfortunately, the conduct of state agencies provides little room for a mood of truth and reconciliation to prevail after the elections are concluded.”

To read Key Challenges for Media after War’s end: Report of the International Press Freedom Mission to Sri Lanka, click here.

State media turned into presidential propaganda outlets

(January 21, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Flouting a 15 January supreme court ruling, state-owned TV stations Rupavahini and ITN continue to openly favour President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s campaign to win another term in the presidential election to be held on 26 January with a total of 21 candidates taking part.


Detailed monitoring by Reporters Without Borders has established that 98.5 per cent of the news and current affairs air-time on these two stations on 18 and 19 January was given over to the president and his supporters. This violates the constitution, above all its seventh amendment and article 104 (b) empowering the electoral commission.

“Alarmed by Gen. Sarath Fonseka’s candidacy, President Rajapaksa and his followers are using and abusing all of the state’s resources to get the president reelected,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The TV propaganda is deafening and the figures we are releasing today are worthy of the Burmese or North Korean regimes.”

The press freedom organisation added: “We urge the supreme court and the electoral commission to use all the powers at their disposal to force Rupavahini and ITN to come to reason. This glaring media imbalance shows that the incumbent is benefiting from an advantage that is unacceptable in a democratic election.”

The Reporters Without Borders monitoring on 18 and 19 January found that, of a total of 472 minutes and 5 seconds of news and current affairs air-time on Rupavahini and ITN, Gen. Fonseka and the other opposition candidates were granted only 7 minutes and 50 seconds, or 1.6 per cent, while the president, his government and his party were granted 465 minutes and 25 seconds, in other words, nearly eight hours of air-time in just two days.

On ITN, one had to wait until the 7 p.m. Sinhalese-language news programme for coverage of opposition activity (Gen. Fonseka for 30 seconds, the UNP for 40 seconds and the JVP for 45 seconds), while President Rajapaksa got 3 minutes on the 9 a.m. programme, 2 minutes on the 10 a.m. programme, 4 minutes 45 seconds on the noon programme and 4 minutes 20 seconds on the Tamil-language programme at 6 p.m.
Rupavahini is giving the government an overwhelming air-time advantage. In the 8 p.m. Sinhalese-language news programme on 18 January, for example, the government got 8 minutes and 30 seconds and the president got 7 minutes and 10 seconds, while Gen. Fonseka, the UNP and the JVP got a combined total of just one minute. And it is deplorable that the twenty or so other candidates are totally ignored by the state media.

Granting so much time to propaganda on behalf of the incumbent is not new. On 11 January, for example, Rupavahini carried a live broadcast of President Rajapaksa’s election programme launch that lasted one hour and 15 minutes.

Even if some privately-owned media are campaigning openly for the opposition or are giving more space to the activities of all the candidates, the extremely biased coverage on the main TV stations is having an undeniable impact on the campaign. Meanwhile, Sirasa TV, a privately-owned station based in Colombo, has not resumed its independent style of coverage since it was attacked by gunmen in January 2009.

The coverage imbalance is being accompanied by a smear campaign against Gen. Fonseka, the former army commander, in certain pro-government media, prompting him to write to eight newspapers requesting apologies for articles he regards as libellous. And the website of the defence ministry, which is headed by the president’s brother, is openly campaigning against him.

Control of the state media has become crucial to the election campaign. The Commissioner of Elections has issued several reminders about the rules requiring balanced coverage and tried to introduce a Competent Authority to monitor the TV stations, but the president’s office resisted. The supreme court’s ruling has also been ignored.

The president and his allies have abused other state resources in the course of the campaign. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, for example, forced all mobile phone operators to send SMS messages signed by President Rajapaksa to all their clients, while soldiers have been seen putting up the president’s election posters.

Cases of intimidation and violence against the media have also increased. Thakshila Dilrukshi, a journalist with the BBC’s Sinhalese-language service, was hospitalised after being attacked by supporters of a minister in the central city of Polonnaruwa on 13 January. Her equipment and personal effects were stolen during the assault, which occurred after she covered a clash between Rajapaksa and Fonseka followers.

The Colombo-based Sunday Leader, outspoken weekly, was raided the same day by police bearing a warrant who claimed to have been tipped off about the printing of "defamatory" posters.

Freelance journalist Jude Samantha was assaulted while covering clashes between government and opposition supporters on 16 January in Madurankuliya, in the western district of Puttalam.

Reporters Without Borders issued an appeal for calm in early December, after the first incidents: http://www.rsf.org/Reporters-Without-Borders-calls,35277.html
http://www.rsf.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=36164

Blatant misuse of public property in a tough battle for the presidency of Sri Lanka

(January 07, Colombo - Lanka Polity) A written complaint lodged by the All Sri Lanka Harbor Workers' Common Union leader Chandrasiri Mahagamage before the Election Commissioner points to shocking revelation of blatant misuse of public property for the presidential campaign of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Minister in charge of the Ports Authority  is Chamal Rajapaksa, the elder brother of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The complainers  say that 300 workers and 70 vehicles of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority have been deployed in presidential propaganda and election violence. The union has exposed the names of the employees and the numbers of the vehicles.

The personnel  have been stationed in three places in Colombo, Embilipitiya in south and Dambulla in north for election operations.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa is using or rather misusing  the platforms of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority for his rallies. Ports Authority employees have been deployed in erecting the stages with overtime and bata allowances violating the election laws, the union points out.

The President  has not spared a single pebble unmoved in the state sector in a tough presidential battle with his ex-Army chief Sarath Fonseka. Senior public servants like his powerful brother defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who has no right for party politics due to his public-paid position is also running a series of seminars in support of his brother blatantly violating the election laws and the establishment code of the public service. Even the President's Secretary, a senior civil servant is also talking in public in support of Rajapaksa. Thousands of people are summoned to a massive tent set up in the Prime Minister's place now he occupies for meetings and they are treated with  food and beverages. Nobody knows who bears the costs as the government says no public funds are used for them.

On the New Year eve, the President  delivered an SMS to all 12 million mobile phone users via the service providers. Many identified the act as an infringement of the privacy of the phone users and the President's unauthorized New Year greeting finally turned to be a spam.

The use of pubic media for the President's propaganda and for slinging  mud at his major opponent was so irresistible to the Election Commissioner and he took measures to ban five programmes of state TV for its notorious content.

Police also came under criticism  of the Election Commissioner for not removing the illegal mega billboards with the images of the President at every nook and corner of the island.

Live coverage of nomination day by Sri Lanka public media bias and partisan to Rajapakse , election monitors say

(December 18, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Amidst Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse's blatant illegal misuse of public property in his run to elect for the second term, one of the major election monitoring movement has written to the Election Commissioner regarding the bias and partisan live telecast of the nomination day by the public television channels. The television channel did not give equal importance to all candidates and gave an unethical prominence to the President Mahinda Rajapakse.


The content of the letter is as follows:
 
In Relation to the Live Telecast of Nomination Day for the 2010 Presidential Election
 
The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) would like to strongly protest against the biased and partisan nature of the Nomination Day Live Telecast for the 2010 Presidential Election shown today the 17th of December 2010.
 
The access and rights to telecast this important national occasion had only been granted to the State owned Rupavahini Channel. They have used this honorable occasion in a very biased and partisan manner currently.
 
Although every Presidential Candidate should get an equal amount of importance during the Live Telecast of the Presidential Nomination Event only ONE candidate was given importance. Not displaying the names of some candidates and their picture next to their name while displaying the name and picture of select candidates was a glaring obvious example of this biased and partisan conduct.
 
Furthermore, during the live telecast television presenters repeatedly mentioned the campaign slogan of one particular candidate. This biased and partisan reporting goes beyond the accepted norms and ethics of unbiased media reporting.
 
CaFFE observes that the situation was made into a totally partisan scenario and this situation arose because the rights to the live telecast were given to only one television channel. It is essential that Election Department take responsible charge of the situation and ensures that no single candidate gets an irregularly high amount of media time in the future Presidential Election period.
 
The situation has arisen again in which the requirement for a Competent Authority for State Media has once again been created by the partisan approach adopted the National State Television Channel of Sri Lanka when telecasting the nationally important nomination day. CaFFE would like to request you to look into this matter urgently.