Former President Bharrat Jagdeo will lead the Commonwealth Observer Group to Sri Lanka’s general elections next week, the Commonwealth Secretariat said yesterday.
The mission was formulated following a formal invitation from Sri Lanka’s Commissioner of Elections, Mahinda Deshapriya, a release from the Commonwealth said.
In the release, Com-monwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma reiterated the Declaration of Principles for Inter-national Election Obser-vation, to which the Commonwealth is a signatory. He said: “Genuine democratic elections are an expression of sovereignty, which belongs to the people of a country, the free expression of whose will provides the basis for the authority and legitimacy of government.”
Sharma added in the release: “Sri Lanka has among the oldest democratic traditions in the Commonwealth. The people of Sri Lanka should be able to freely exercise their franchise, in an enabling environment marked by transparency, a level playing field, and adherence to the laws and norms that govern a credible and peaceful election.
For this, key stakeholders must play their due roles.”
The Group will consider the pre-electoral environment and preparations. On election day and thereafter, members will observe the voting process, counting and tabulation procedures and the announcement of results.
Upon completion of its assignment, the Group will submit its report to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, who will in turn send it to the Government of Sri Lanka, the Commis-sioner of Elections and the principal political parties, before making it available to all Commonwealth Governments, and eventually releasing it into the public domain.
The nine Observers will be in Sri Lanka from the 2nd to 14th January 2015, the release said. A five-member team from the Commonwealth Secretariat, led by Katalaina Sapolu, Director of the Rule of Law Division, will support them.
Jagdeo has been heavily criticized in Guyana over the quality of governance while he ran the country between 1999 and 2011.
There is also the matter of his successor, President Donald Ramotar having alleged that the 2011 general elections here were rigged to deprive the government of an overall majority in Parliament. None of the observer missions to the 2011 polls found any evidence of rigging. The other team members are Maria Chin Abdullah of the Coalition of Free and Fair Elections, Malaysia; Dr Campbell Gordon Calder, Former Member of Parliament, New Zealand; Mr Qamar Zaman Kaira, Former Minister and Member of Parliament, Pakistan; Eldred De Klerk, Rule of law and elections security expert, South Africa; Dr Sally Kosgei, Former Minister and Member of Parliament, Kenya; Sa-adatu Maida, Election Commissioner, Ghana; Brij Bihari Tandon, Former Election Com-missioner of India, India; Lainy Malkani, Media Expert, United Kingdom.
