Civil society organisations in Sri Lanka are very active and play a pro-active role in constitutional and electoral reforms. They play an important role to monitor and report at all states of the electoral process, increasing transparency and confidence of stakeholders.
In the 2015 Parliamentary Elections, the main domestic organisations – the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), the Center for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) and Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) – carried out large-scale monitoring of misuse of public resources, campaign violations and incidents of electoral violence, and produced detailed reports on a regular basis. They were also engaged in limited voter education/information projects and in Election Day and postal (early, in-person) voting observation.
The legal framework contains no provision for domestic or international observation. Accreditation for domestic observers is at the discretion of the Commissioner of Elections and this was granted without specific, public or objective criteria.
On Election Day PAFFREL and CMEV deployed over 15,000 stationary observers while CaFFE and the National Poll Observation Center (NPOC) some 4,000 mobile observers. Only 300 domestic observers were accredited to observe the counting in just 30 per cent of the counting centres across Sri Lanka. According to civil society representatives, such limited access did not add value in terms of observation findings.
Source
Final Report: Parliamentary Elections 17 August 2015, European Union, 2015,https://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/missions/2015/sri-lanka/pdf/eueom-srilanka-final-report_20151017_en.pdf.
Sri Lanka Parliamentary Elections 17 August 2015, The Commonwealth, 2015, http://thecommonwealth.org/sites/default/files/press-release/documents/Sri%20Lanka%20Parliamentary%20Elections%20August%202015%20-%20Commonwealth%20Observer%20Group%20Report.pdf.
Resources :
PDF : 2015 Presidential Election Interim Report (PAFFREL)
Link : Election Day Statement by PAFFREL 2013 (PAFFREL : Sep 21, 2013)
PDF : Final Report, Presidential Elections, Commonwealth Secretariat (2010)
PDF : Final Report, Presidential Elections, (Commonwealth Secretariat: 2005)
PDF : Sri Lanka: Preliminary Statement, Presidential Election, EU, (2005)
PDF : Final Report, Presidential Elections, (EU: 2005)
PDF : Preliminary Statement Presidential Elections (EU: 2005 (English)
PDF : Sri Lanka: Preliminary Statement, Presidential Election, EU, (2005) (Tamil)
PDF : Sri Lanka: Preliminary Statement, Presidential Election, EU, (2005) (Sinhala)
PDF : Final report, General Elections, Commonwealth, (2004)
PDF : Final Report, Presidential Elections, (EU: 2004)
PDF : Sri Lanka: Final Report, Parliamentary Elections, EU (2001)
PDF : Sri Lanka: Final Report, Parliamentary Election, EU (2000)