Monday, 22 December 2014 00:00
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TENSIONS spawned by presidential elections are embroiling Sri Lankans living both inside and outside the country. Election monitors and officials have been put on guard by alleged attempts to fraudulently co-opt the vote of around 100,000 migrant workers, mostly employed in the Middle East.
The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE), along with other polls monitors, has warned Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya about covert moves to impersonate Sri Lankans working overseas. He alleged that the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment had provided the names of more than 100,000 expatriate workers to a particular presidential candidate, a claim denied by the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLFEB).
Election monitors want officials to inspect the passport of anyone claiming to be a migrant worker on 8 January but the elections department is yet to give any assurances of the sort. Early reports in weekend news articles indicate a National Identity Card will still be deemed sufficient and a passport will need only be produced if officials at the polling station are suspicious.
Despite discussions with Deshapriya this loophole-ridden policy has sparked concern for several reasons. One is that there are insufficient numbers of polls monitors. Currently only 300 monitors will be deployed at 1.115 counting centres around the island, which means many fraudulent voters could slip into polling booths unknown to or unsuspected by officials.
A second concern is foreign monitors need special permission to work in the north. A decree by the Defence Ministry that is unlikely to change ahead of the elections, making independent verification of voting tricky indeed. Greater pressure will therefore be placed on local monitoring organisations to add policing of migrant workers to all their other duties.
One might imagine the police would be helpful in this instance as thousands of them would undoubtedly be lurking at all polling booths scattered around the country. However, recent activities by the police in terms of stemming polls violence are not confidence-inspiring. In fact, photographs have emerged of them shielding pro-government goons who disrupted an Opposition rally in Haputale, where United National Party (UNP) Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was to speak.
As the battle over migrant workers heats up, so too does the fight to get union representatives to back candidates. The Opposition managed to tick this box on Saturday when they signed up the support of the All Island Middle-East Employees Organization which has assured the support of 149,000 families for common candidate Maithripala Sirisena.
One of the grievances mentioned was President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s failure in establishing a pension scheme for migrant workers, which was initially promised in both 2005 and later in the revamped 2010 policy framework of the Government. They also insist insufficient assistance has been provided for migrant workers who have returned from spells in the Middle East and suffer from mental and physical issues.
One of the more ambitious rumours doing the rounds is that efforts are being made to encourage thousands of migrant workers to return to the island during the time of the election. An effort that is likely to be nipped in the bud by employers in the Middle East. With no ballot boxes established abroad, as is the practice in many other countries, migrant workers can nonetheless use the present political atmosphere to get their voices heard - at least for now.
