By Lakna Paranamanna
The Campaign For Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) stated that a total number of 85 election violence incidents have been reported from the Central and North Western Provinces as on February 10, 2009, including 53 assaults.

The Central Province is reported to have 56 incidents while the North Western Province reported 29 incidents. He said that the past few days have been very aggressive and the situation seems to be rapidly deteriorating. “The days ahead will be more violent than the past few days and although the number of incidents that have been reported are low the gravity of the tension in these areas has not lessened,” said the spokesman of CaFFE, Keerthi Tennakoon adding that Nuwara Eliya and Puttalam districts have indicated to be the most aggressive among the six districts of the two provinces.

He remarked that they are not happy about the manner in which the law enforcement is operating in the areas since some of their actions regarding these incidents are not transparent. “These incidents have directly affected the free and fair state of the elections and therefore I do not call this a free and fair election,” Tennakoon added.

He also said that in contrast to the comments made by the Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake, more than 50,000 people from the plantation sector would not be legible to cast their votes since they do not posses national ID cards or any other legal document of identification.

Meanwhile the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) claimed that only 49 incidents have been reported so far and this election is virtually predicted to be less violent than the elections held previously. “There have been very less election violence incidents and we expect that even the days ahead will be subdued,” added the Chairman of PAFFREL, Kingsley Rodrigo.