The Commonwealth was invited to observe the 26 January Presidential Elections by the Commissioner for Elections. The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth deployed a five-person Expert Team supported by a staff team from the Secretariat. Our team has been present in the country since 18 January, meeting with representatives of political parties, civil society, media and Commonwealth High Commissions as well as observing the voting and counting in five provinces.

This statement is preliminary and reflects an initial overview of some of the main issues raised during our stay and through our observations. We will issue a final report of detailed findings and conclusions at a later stage.

Sri Lanka has a long tradition of organising elections, and overall the administrative arrangements for voting and counting in this election reflect this, having been well conducted. The Commissioner for Elections and his staff across the country expended great effort to put in place procedures to ensure Sri Lankans were able to cast their ballots and the ballots were properly counted. There have been some reports of violent-incidents, notably in Northern Province, and malpractice in isolated areas, and we hope that all such instances are properly investigated. But based on our team reports and reports from other observers it appears that overall voting and counting have proceeded reasonably well in most areas.

The Commissioner for Elections assured us that every effort had been made to provide Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) the right to vote. However, some problems were reported, including ID card issues and transportation problems for some of those needing to travel to cluster polling stations. As the situation for these communities further normalises, the electoral arrangements for them will hopefully also become more regular.

The main problems facing this election, as for a number of previous elections, were encountered during the pre-election period. The Commissioner for Elections publicly expressed his frustration at the failure of some state institutions, notably state media, to comply with his guidelines and directives as they are legally obliged to do so. In addition, there were widespread credible reports that state resources were being mis-used during the campaign in favour of the incumbent.