LG POLLS ON FEBRUARY 10

Picture by Kelum Liyanage

The Local Government elections will be held on February 10, 2018, Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya announced yesterday.

The gazette notification with regard to date will be issued on December 26, he said.

Deshapriya said the due date to submit the postal vote applications for public servants who will be engaging in election duty ends at mid night December 22 and he urged them not to wait till the last minute to send their applications.

Addressing a media briefing held at the Elections Secretariat, he urged government servants not to post any application after December 21.

If anybody wants to submit an application after 21, it should be handed over to the closest elections office as soon as possible.

For the first time in the history, the counting of Local Government Election votes of some wards will take place at polling centers and a decision has also been taken to count the votes of two or three polling stations at one location within the ward.

The Chairman said that he would not hesitate to take the decision of annulling the result of any counting center where there is any incident of tampering with the election result or damaging public property.

He said posters of candidates can be displayed only at their campaign offices and vehicles with campaign stickers are permitted only if the candidate is using the vehicle at any given point.

The second phase of accepting nominations for the Local Government Election commenced yesterday morning expecting nominations for 248 Local Government bodies.

The acceptance of nominations for 93 Local Government bodies concluded last Thursday after commencing on December 11.

The nomination submission period for the second phase concludes at noon on Thursday December 21, while nomination lists will only be accepted by Returning Officers between 8:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m.

The Chairman requested all political parties and independent groups to ensure the nomination lists are filled according to the stipulated criteria to avoid rejection. Speaking about the rejection of several nomination lists handed over by various political parties and independent groups, he said that out of the total of 497 nomination lists received only 23 have been rejected. He said that the main reason for rejecting most of these lists was the failure to hand over within the allotted time period.

He further said that the commission will not challenge anybody’s right to go to court and challenge the rejection of nominations lists. He also said that certain nominations lists were rejected as they were not handed over by the persons authorized to do so.

He said nominations should be handed over by the party secretary or authorised agent. For independent groups it is the group leader. A candidate who is contesting the election can hand over the nominations only if he informed in writing earlier.

He further added that some nominations were rejected because they were handed over during certain auspicious times, and not during the allotted time frame.

The Chairman stressed that none of the nomination lists were rejected by Returning Officers because they like to reject and the returning officers are there to accept the nominations and not to reject them.

Making any statement insulting women candidates is completely prohibited and legal action would be taken against anybody involved in such acts, Deshapriya said.

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