SRI LANKAN ELECTIONS COMMISSIONER: FAQS FOR AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 COLOMBO 001177 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INSB E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/22/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PHUM PTER EAID MOPS CE SUBJECT: SRI LANKAN ELECTIONS COMMISSIONER: FAQS FOR AND ABOUT COLOMBO 00001177 001.2 OF 004 Classified By: AMBASSADOR PATRICIA A. BUTENIS. REASONS: 1.4 (B, D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION: The following provides Post assessment of key issues related to the Sri Lankan Elections Commissioner and the upcoming presidential election scheduled for January 26. The message is organized in frequently-asked-question (FAQ) format and draws on Ambassador's December 18 meeting with the Commissioner and Post research. END SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION. WHO IS THE COMMISSIONER AND WHAT ARE HIS POWERS? -------------- --- ¶2. (C) Commissioner of Elections (EC) Dayananda Dissanayake is a professional civil servant, who has served in the Sri Lankan elections apparatus uninterrupted since 1975. As a civil servant, he is underpaid and generally under-appreciated. He told us he had had five heart attacks and tried to resign/retire several times, but the president refused his resignation, presumably because those next in line for EC leadership are either loyalists of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga or of the UNP. ¶3. (C) Dissanayake has tried to be fair in his position and has promised to be tough against violations. The challenges are great, however, and it is unclear whether he will turn out to be a Sri Lankan Thomas More or will be forced to go-along to get-along. On paper, the EC enjoys fairly broad authority over the conduct of elections. In reality, however, his authority is not backed up by enforcement powers, and he largely depends on use of the bully-pulpit and the good will of the candidates. Compounding this problem is the fact that the president enjoys immunity from prosecution. WHO ARE THE ALL THESE CANDIDATES? -------------- ¶4. (C) Twenty three candidates paid their fees and personally submitted their nominations to the EC during a two-hour window on December 17. One candidate's paperwork was out of order and his candidacy was not accepted, leaving 22 to contest the election. In addition to front-runners Rajapaksa and Fonseka, the EC told us that many of the 22 are "proxy" candidates, that is, candidates who actually favor one of the main candidates and are running to give them additional air-time and resources (such as monitors at polling stations). The EC said this practice had been a problem for some time but had reached a qualitatively new level this election. He did not identify to whom the proxies belonged, but we believe most are loyal to Rajapaksa, though Fonseka has a few of his own. It was because of these and other abuses that the EC has made a public appeal for implementation of the election-commission provisions of the 17th Amendment, which would give him greater leeway to reject bogus or corrupt candidates. The EC said he would like to have the authority and power of his counterpart in India, who regulates all aspects of elections on a permanent basis and not only during the official campaign seasons. WHAT CAN THE EC DO TO ENFORCE EVEN-HANDEDNESS IN THE MEDIA? -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Not very much. The EC has allotted 45 minutes of air-time for each candidate on state television (candidates can use the 45 minutes all at once or in 15-minute increments). The EC also has the authority to appoint a "competent authority" to take over management of state electronic media. The EC explained that if he were to receive a complaint, he would issue a warning to the offending party. (He did not mention whether he had yet COLOMBO 00001177 002.2 OF 004 received a formal complaint, though the opposition already has been making loud public complaints.) If the warning were not heeded, he would then appoint a competent authority, who would take over the day-to-day management of the state radio or television outlet. The legislation did not provide, however, for a competent authority to oversee state newspapers. (NOTE: The government's Daily News has become at this point little more than a Rajapaksa daily campaign brochure. We believe that it is now fulfilling the same function as the old Soviet Pravda: aimed not so much at persuading a general audience, the paper primarily serves as a guide to the latest official campaign positions for party and state functionaries. END NOTE.) ¶6. (C) Given the short campaign season, it may not be until the very end of the campaign that the EC would get around to appointing a competent authority -- a model that was followed in a previous provincial election, when the EC appointed a competent authority two days before the voting. Beyond appointing the competent authority, the EC has very little other power, and thus we expect the state media to continue to be used as an outlet for the president's campaign. As for private media, the EC has no authority over it. The Rajapaksas or their allies own many of the private media outlets and are crowding out the opposition, which also lacks the Rajapaksas' financial resources. WILL IDPS BE ALLOWED TO VOTE? -------------- ¶7. (C) Three years ago, the Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruled that identification documents were a mandatory requirement for all voters. There are approximately two million persons without National Identity Cards (NIC). When Ambassador asked him whether IDP temporary ID cards could serve as IDs for the purposes of the election, the EC stuck to his guns, noting that the only officially recognized forms of identification were the NIC, a driver's license, passport, pension card, clergy ID, and senior citizen card -- IDP temporary IDs would not be accepted (he did not explain why). Nevertheless, the EC claimed that IDPs and others were being issued registration cards in the field and he said he was confident they would be able to vote. When asked how the IDPs would learn about the ID requirements in time, the EC said his organization had lists of the IDP releases and "my officers are tracking them down." We understand that less than 7,000 IDPs have been registered to vote so far. A domestic monitoring group estimated that there were approximately 160,000 IDPs eligible to vote, if they had proper IDs. WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH VOTER ID CARDS? -------------- ¶8. (C) The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE -- one of the three main Sri Lankan election-monitoring groups) reported that 3.6 million temporary identification cards have been printed by the government, with one million allocated to the EC and 2.6 million for the registration of voters by other government officials, including Samurdhi officers (Samurdhi is a government-managed poverty-alleviation scheme),justices of the peace, and principals of schools. There is concern that with 3.6 million blank temporary cards in circulation, and with GSL officials subjected to political influence, there is potential for election fraud. During the Eastern Provincial election, there was significant misuse of temporary cards, including in some cases by children 14-15 years old. The EC nonetheless assured the opposition that he would monitor the issuance of temporary ID cards, all of which would include his official seal. The bottom line is that given historically high voter turn-outs (65 to 70 COLOMBO 00001177 003.2 OF 004 percent) officials have tended to gloss over the ID-card issue. WILL EC OFFICIALS HAVE ADEQUATE ACCESS TO THE NORTH AND EAST? -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) The north and east contain one million or 7 percent of voters. Based on the assumption that the Sinhala vote will be evenly divided between the two main candidates, the minority vote may make the difference in deciding the winner.EQt;ccHNisvw7br in the north has not been updated since 1986, but the EC is allowing potential voters to register by January 15 (some reports say the date had been changed to December 24). Currently many people in these areas are not yet registered. The estimate of potential voters for Jaffna and Killinochi is 720,000 and 267,000 in Mannar, Vavuniya, and Mullaitivu. There is also a shortage of civil servants in the north, and many administrative services are controlled by the military. The military controls access for civilian agencies, non-governmental organization, political parties, the media, and even the candidates themselves. CAFFE cited an instance where an EC official was denied clearance from the Ministry of Defense (MOD) to travel to Mannar. The Elections Commissioner nevertheless told us they were not having access problems. He said he was "not encouraging" the army to play a role in providing security on election day -- that was up to the police, though the army could ensure the roads remained open, etc. On whether the EC staff had enough Tamil speakers to communicate with IDPs and others in the north and east, the EC said his staff working there were locals and spoke Tamil, as well as English. WHAT ROLE WILL INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS PLAY? -------------- ¶10. (C) Almost none. The EC explained to us that there was no legal basis for international observer missions. Any such missions could only be invited at the agreement of the candidates. For the last ten years, bilateral observer missions have not been permitted. (The EC recounted a story of three "eminent persons" from a foreign country, who were found dining with a candidate the night before an election in 1999.) When asked about diplomats serving as observers, the EC said the MFA had looked into the issue and determined that the Geneva Conventions did not permit diplomats serving in this role. It was for this reason that the UK High Commissioner was PNG'd a few years ago when he was found inside a polling station. Nevertheless, the EC said diplomats were free to move about the country and could watch events from a respectful distance. When Ambassador asked the EC whether observers from the Carter Center would be permitted, he at first said no based on what he presumed to be its affiliation with the Democratic Party. But when Ambassador explained that the Carter Center was a non-partisan, internationally recognized organization, the EC said he would talk to the representatives of the candidates to see whether they would agree to the Center sending observers. ¶11. (C) The EC issued invitations to the EU, the UN, the British Commonwealth, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC),and the Association of Asian Elections Commissions. The EU and the UN have already said that they could not organize observer missions in time for the January election. The Commonwealth has agreed to send a five-person team of election "experts" (not observers),who will monitor election "themes," such as media access, human rights, and the conduct of the campaign. They will arrive in country three weeks before the election and will spend the COLOMBO 00001177 004.2 OF 004 first week in Colombo talking with diplomatic missions, domestic observers, and the candidates. Four of the five will deploy to different parts of the country for the two weeks prior to the election. The team will issue a report three weeks after the election. No other third-country monitors may be added to the Commonwealth team. There may also be similar small teams (one to three individuals each) from SAARC and the Association of Asian Elections Commissions. There are no other plans for large-scale international observer missions. WHO ARE THE DOMESTIC OBSERVERS AND WHAT WILL BE THEIR ROLE? -------------- -------------- ¶12. (C) Domestic election observers are probably the single most important factor working for free and fair elections in Sri Lanka. They number in the thousands and are firmly committed to doing all they can to watch out for and report abuses. In past elections, the EC has provided official accreditation to domestic monitoring organizations, which allows them access to polling stations across the country, but denied them access to counting centers. The three main organizations include: PAFFREL (Peoples' Action for Free and Fair Elections),which is associated with Jehan Perera's National Peace Council; CMEV (Center for Monitoring Election Violence),which is associated with P. Saravanamuttu's Center for Policy Alternatives; and CAFFE (Campaign for Free and Fair Elections). There are approximately 10,000 polling stations in the country, and the three groups hope to train and deploy enough observers to cover most, if not all, the stations. USAID and other third-country sources will provide funding to the domestic observer organizations. COMMENT -------------- ¶13. (C) The Election Commissioner appeared to us to be a well-intentioned though overwhelmed public servant, who faced a nearly impossible task in ensuring a free and fair election. Despite having many powers on paper, the EC has little to back him up and, given the high stakes in this election, is likelQ(QQ-vQQ8Q!