Sri Lanka’s EC urges President to release funds for local body polls

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s election commission on Sunday wrote to President Ranil Wickremesinghe requesting him to release the necessary funds to conduct the much-delayed local council elections in the debt-ridden country next month.

The local body polls, which was earlier scheduled for March 9, got postponed to April 25, due to a plethora of reasons linked to the country’s current economic crisis.

Chairman of the Election Commission Attorney-at-Law Nimal G Punchihewa said he has written to President Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, urging him to release the necessary funds to hold the local body polls on the scheduled date.

The move comes after officials in the Treasury told the election commission last month that funds for the local body polls have not been disbursed by the finance ministry.

Earlier this month, the government’s printer Gangani Liyanage made written requests to the Treasury Secretary and police chief to hold the much-delayed local council elections.

Liyanage’s office said the inability to print the ballot papers to conduct the postal voting from February 21 to 24 made the Elections Commission postpone the elections.

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court issued a directive to the Treasury that the conduct of the polls should not be

hindered.