Colombo: The campaigning for the Provincial Council elections next month in eastern Sri Lanka has so far been largely peaceful though things could hot up in the coming days, a Citizen-based election watch dog said.
Releasing its first supplementary report on the poll to be held on May 10, PAFFREL yesterday said the region, having one million eligible voters, has been largely free of any violence, even as several security force personnel have been deployed in strength there.
The Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) said it has received 18 cases of untoward incidents so far with all of them being recorded after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
But only two of them could be categorised as serious, said PAFFREL Chairman Kingsley Rodrigo.
Meanwhile, Rodrigo attributed the escalation of incidents after the new year to the heightened political activity with all major parties staking a claim unlike the Batticaloa local polls held on March 10,2008.
PAFFREL has decided to deploy over 2500 monitors for the forthcoming poll which would include a team of about 20 international observers.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to allow more time for people undertaking postal voting for the Eastern Provincial Elections scheduled to be held on May 10.
