(COLOMBO) – The Sri Lankan Election Commission has told presidential candidates to provide the source of funds for their election funding campaigns and will also set a expenditure limit where each candidate can spend at the September 21 presidential poll, officials said.
Subsequently, the Election Commission will be holding a crucial meeting with all candidates at 10 a.m. on Friday to finalize the budget that each candidate can spend for their campaigning.
Commissioner General of Elections, Saman Sri Ratnayake said that the final budget for campaigning will be discussed with all candidates and once this figure is set, they will have to adhere to it.
He added that at the conclusion of the Presidential Election the winner and all candidates will be given a period of 21 days to declare the amounts of money they spent on campaigning and their source of funds.
Once this is done, the Election Commission will take a further 10 days to review the reports by the candidates and will then publish it online.
If there is any discrepancy or if any candidate has exceeded the amount which was decided by the Election Commission, the public can take legal action in court against that particular candidate.
Meanwhile an independent local polls observer group the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) and the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV0 will together be deploying some 15,000 election observers on ground, Executive Director of PAFFREL, Rohana Hettiarachchi said.
“This will be a unique election with the biggest IT involvement,” CMEV National Coordinator Manjula Gajanayake said, adding that the CMEV is looking forward to partnering with foreign firms to monitor and handle an AI based monitoring process to identify misinformation and hate speech.
“We can see the involvement of paid campaigns to spread misinformation and hate speech on social media against certain candidates,” former Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya said.
In order to counter such misinformation and to ensure a free and fair election, all major stakeholders including the Election Commission, the Bribery and Corruption Department, the Inland Revenue Department and the police force will all come together to maintain a fair and transparent Presidential Election on September 21.
