EU deploys election observers to Sri Lanka

The EU is to send a 70-strong team to oversee the Sri Lankan general election on April 2.

Sri Lanka’s commissioner of elections invited the EU to send a mission to inject a stabilising influence into the country’s fragile peace process.

The approaching election was sparked by the constitutional crisis between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who come from different parties.

The leaders have clashed over issues arising from the peace talks which many hoped would bring an end years of bloodshed between Sri Lankan governments and the Tamil Tigers which has cost over 60,000 lives.

EU external affairs commissioner Chris Patten urged all leaders to “refrain from any rhetoric which risks stirring up religious or ethnic intolerance.”

“I am very concerned about the violence and killings that have already taken place during the election campaign,” he said.

Irish MEP John Cushnahan will head up the team, which will base itself in Sri Lankan capital Colombo and spread across the country to follow pre-electoral preparations, campaigning, voting day and the post-election period.

 

 

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