23 Nominations Rejected as Per Election Law

The Elections Commission rejected twenty three nominations as they were not submitted with the necessary documents or were not submitted on time, Chairman of the Elections Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya said. He has ruled out any bias against any candidate.

Addressing the Media yesterday (18), Deshapriya said, the Commission had received 497 nominations and of them, only 23 were rejected. Commenting on claims that the rejected nominees would go to Courts seeking redress, he added the rejections were according to Elections Law and that the Commission would not change its stance. Deshapriya observed that the Commission respects the right of persons whose applications were rejected, to seek redress in the Courts. He added that Party Leaders had been informed about the criterion that had to be met when submitting nomination applications.

Anyone has the right to go to Courts against the Commission. We will not hinder that. Nominations were rejected purely due to nomination criteria not being met. Nominations should be handed in by either the party secretary or an authorised agent. An individual candidate could also submit nominations, however he must get written permission from the relevant authorities. In most cases, nomination papers were not filled in the proper manner or did not have the signatures from the party secretary and a Justice of the Peace.

In some instances, the ”Y” column in the nomination paper was filled. This column has to be filled if the candidate is young and proof of age by way of a birth certificate must be produced. However, although the ”Y” column was filled, in some cases Birth Certificates certified by the Registrar of Births were not attached.

If candidate do not deposit bonds, nominations will be rejected. We received many nominations that were submitted after closing time on each day. These too were rejected. If the female representation quota was not met, this was also a reason for nominations being rejected, Deshapriya said.

The Commissioner requested all candidates who will be submitting nomination applications till 21 December to be mindful of the conditions set out by the Elections Commission and to adhere to it and prevent applications from being rejected.