Did Sirisena Win by Election Fraud? A Possible Challenge at the Supreme Court
Posted on January 19th, 2015
Dilrook Kannangara
There is no doubt Mahinda lost the election. It w as a mathematical certainty as he invested far too much on the minority which turned against him by 2012 and the majority was deprived of meaningful economic benefits. As per strict interpretation of the law, a candidate wins the election by winning over 50% votes. As such Sirisena won win a margin of 155,436 votes. This is what the Election Commissioner declares. In other words, Sirisena would not be president had he won 155,436 (or thereabout) votes less (provided the total valid votes remain same).
There is grave suspicion of election fraud in Jaffna, Vanni, Batticaloa, Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee, Digamadulla and Colombo Districts due to the suspicious increase in the registered number of voters, the voters’ turnout and the possibility of casting votes twice owing to improved road infrastructure. On a lighter note, it is rather unfortunate that Mahinda’s excellent road network led to his defeat, literally.
Background
Voters register in the Northern Province was ridiculously wrong until 2010. For instance in 2010 Jaffna Election District (including Kilinochchi) had 721,359 registered voters when the entire Jaffna District population in 2012 was only 696,253! In 2010 the Northern Province had 990,344 registered voters when its entire population in 2012 was only 1,058,762. How come 94% of Northern Province was adults and voters in 2010? Nationally it is only around only 71%.
After 2010 the Northern Province voters register was cleansed but not completely. It still contains many names relating to persons who permanently reside abroad and elsewhere.
However, the crucial factor is a very high percentage of registered voters from the Northern Province have registered themselves in the voters register elsewhere, mostly in Colombo and Gampaha Districts. It didn’t matter until the 2015 election as not many could possibly caste their vote twice in the Northern and Western Provinces on the same day because travel time was substantial. However, today it is very much possible for a person to caste his/her vote in Colombo or Gampaha and also caste a second vote in the districts of Jaffna, Vanni, Batticaloa, Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee and Digamadulla.
Since the end of the war, persons of minority ethnic groups dispersed throughout the country while retaining their home-base in their original villages. This was not seen among the majority.
Basis of Suspicion
In 2010 only 292,812 from the Northern Province voted but it astronomically increased to 534,430 in 2015. The easy explanation is resettlement and peace. However, they don’t sufficiently explain this increase of 83%. Even in 1982 there was only 44% voters’ turnout in Jaffna District which was 66% in 2015. Similarly Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Nuwara Eliya Districts showed 20%, 20% and 23% increases respectively in the number polled compared to 2010. For all other districts it was only 14%.
Further suspicion is aroused by the fact that the registered voters for the Northern Province increased from 2013 to 2014 by a staggering 9%. It was an increase of 5% for the Eastern Province and 4% for the North Western Province. How come Northern Province registered voters increased so dramatically since the Northern Provincial Council election just a year ago?
TNA’s success at the Northern Provincial Council election and improved transport infrastructure which enabled casting fraudulent votes in the north most probably drove this rush of registrations (or double registrations). Most working adults in Jaffna District work outside the district and potentially have registered (and voted) in two districts. Vanni, Batticaloa, Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee and Digamadulla Districts also have a significant number of adults working outside the district and potentially have registered (and voted) in two districts.
During voter registration, certain foreign funded NGOs worked very hard to register as many persons as they possibly could in these districts. Their efforts have produced the desired result.
Numbers Involved
If Sirisena received 440,250 votes from persons casting more than one vote, he is ineligible to become president. (In that case Mahinda too would also have received around 130,000 such votes.) As he won 75% of the vote in the Districts of Jaffna, Vanni, Batticaloa, Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee and parts of Digamadulla had 293,500 persons from these districts casted two votes each, it brings down his true total below 50%. This assumes both votes cast by a fraudulent person are invalidated.
That is 16% of registered voters in these districts. It is a reasonable number given the astronomical increase in the number polled in these districts.
The same logic does not apply in other districts as the chances of one getting more votes than the other by fraud are slim. As the percentages are close to 50% for both, chances are that fraudulent votes are equally distributed between the two main candidates.
Course of Action
The Supreme Court should be petitioned alleging voter fraud in the districts Jaffna, Vanni, Batticaloa, Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee, Digamadulla, Puttlam, Gampaha and Colombo helped Sirisena win the election. A preliminary investigation into actual names of voters who cast their votes in these districts must be made to identify those who voted twice. It will be a substantial investigation but only around 300,000 (with a safety margin) such instances need to be found. Subject to access, a force of 100 persons can complete the work in a couple of days.
If the court buys the argument, it may order an island-wide investigation.
Counting the second preference this time would not help anyone win the election and as such the election will be annulled as it failed to elect anyone as president. It will be as if there was no presidential election.
Even if the case is unsuccessful, it will caste substantial doubt in voters of the legitimacy of the victory of the UNP led coalition that will deny the UNP the post-election popularity surge it enjoys now. This surge if allowed to remain can propel it to win most parliamentary seats at the forthcoming General Election.
January 18th, 2015 at 7:37 pm
Dilrook, Thank you very much for bringing this information to our notice. A friend of mine did a small analysis and this is what he came up with. The numbers do not make any sense at all. How can the number of voters increase by 91% in Jaffna and by 71% in Vanni. These numbers are from Ada Derana. If Dilrook’s hypothesis is true then the Election Commissioner must open investigation to possible voter fraud. Somebody should do a full analysis of the increase in number of voters for all districts and compare and publish the results. I understand that the complaint has to be filed to the election commissioner within two weeks of the publishing of election results. That means by January 22. I hope the formatting of numbers hold.
District 2010 2015 Increase in Voters % Increase
Digamadulla 306562 357817 51255 16.7
Batticaloa 211891 256586 44695 21.1
Jaffna 178369 340751 162382 91.0
Nuwara Eliya 346382 423466 77084 22.2
Vanni 105252 180225 74973 71.2
Trinco 162072 195356 33284 20.5
Totals Districts 1310528 1754201 443673 33.8
January 18th, 2015 at 9:45 pm
“Further suspicion is aroused by the fact that the registered voters for the Northern Province increased from 2013 to 2014 by a staggering 9%. It was an increase of 5% for the Eastern Province and 4% for the North Western Province. How come Northern Province registered voters increased so dramatically since the Northern Provincial Council election just a year ago?”
I believe a lot of Indians have settled in North and East secretly during the neglect years of MR government agreeing most cries to Tamil Nadu.
January 19th, 2015 at 8:39 am
The news circling among Sri Lankan’s living overseas these days is that biased public servants in North and East rigged the election in their areas in favour of Sirisena with the help of EC Desapriya. Remember many western countries praised the EC for his impartiality? It is high time for some patriots to come forward to pursue legal action against this colossal fraud.
January 19th, 2015 at 11:27 am
Tamil Nadu wants to “REPATRIATE Sri Lankan Tamils” with an AID PACKAGE from Sri Lanka, including “1/2 Acre of Land” in the Wanni!!!
And so, Tamil “RESETTLEMENT” is to proceed, presumably including Indian Tamils Kallathonis among them, at Sri Lanka’s expense, while Sinhala settlers are BARRED from setlling there!
Aiyoooo Sirisenaaaa …… What have you done to our Motherland!
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Aid Package Needed for Refugees to Return to Lanka
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Jan 19 (NIE) COLOMBO- S.C.Chandrahasan, head of the Organization for Eelam Refugees� Rehabilitation (OfERR), has been trying to impress upon the Governments of India and Tamil Nadu the need to work out an aid package to motivate Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to return to the island nation.
On Sunday, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Sri Lankan counterpart Mangala Samaraweera, had agreed to start, by the end of January, discussions on the repatriation of Lankan Tamil refugees living in camps in Tamil Nadu.
Welcoming the decision, Chandrahasan said that OfERR had worked out a time-bound aid package and submitted it to the Governments of India, Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. “It could be the basis of an India-Sri Lanka Agreement on Repatriation and Resettlement,” he told Express.
It would be easier to work with the new Lankan regime, given the fact that it will not make a fetish of security concerns unlike the Rajapaksa government, Chandrahasan felt. But New Delhi should see to it that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) does not put a spoke in the wheel by propagating the idea that the refugees should be given permanent resident status or citizenship in India, he added.
“It is important for Lankan Tamils to return to their homeland and reclaim their lost lands and rights there,” Chandrahasan said.
Aid Package
To motivate the refugees to return, the Lankan government should give them land and the means to start a livelihood, and India could look after other needs.
“It should be possible for the Lankan government to give about 20,000 returnee families half an acre each in the Wanni area. India could help them build houses and offer a financial grant to each family for three to six months. The financial part of the aid package will tally with the amount the governments of India and Tamil Nadu are now spending on the refugees,” Chandrahasan said.
Asked if refugees would opt to go back, he said: ” The 26,000 who came in 2006 will go back because they have not struck roots in Tamil Nadu. Among the rest, the women and youth want to go, but older men find shifting difficult.”
January 20th, 2015 at 8:46 am
It was estimated that about 1 million Tamils left Sri Lanka for greener pastures in Canada, Australia, and Europe in the early 1980s. At the end of the 30 year old war when the North and East was liberated and the first census was done it was found that the number of Tamils was similar. In other words, hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants had come from Tamil Nadu to take the place of those who left. Natural increase due to birth rate cannot explain such phenomenal increases in the N&E and Central areas. Also take into account loss of life due to tsunami, particularly in East coast where the tsunami hit hard. How can there be such huge increases in those areas ?
After the war with the LTTE, to please India, MR in a hurry to build homes and settled these people without checking on their identities. The GoSL should have first determined who were the illegal immigrants and shipped them back. A lot of them had moved to Nuwara Eliya to the tea estates. So no wonder that there were so many Tamil voters in North, East and Nuwara Eliya. Sri Lanka is getting gradually Tamilized by the illegal migrants from Tamil Nadu. .
Sri Lanka should negotiate with India to take back these people and offer them land in India. We are such a small country we cannot afford to take in the, the Dalits of Tamil nadu, the Maldivians, the Pakistani refugees, and other people disenchanted with their own countries of origin. Even Prabahakaran had stated that a third of his fighters were from Tamil Nadu. Yet MR rehabilitated them, trained them and gave them houses and jobs. Most of the diaspora do well in Canada, USA and Europe are doctors, engineers, etc., who got their jobs in those countries thanks to the free education they received in Sri Lanka.. In addition, they got free health care and sometimes free food in Sri Lanka. Do any of them have any gratitude for Sri Lanka or the Sinhalese people ? They delight in spreading lies about Sri Lanka abroad to win sympathy from those people to get more from governments abroad.
The Sinhalese must have their heads examined !
January 20th, 2015 at 10:41 am
Do any of them have any gratitude for Sri Lanka or the Sinhalese people ? Why We-Hela Demilayas gratitude you??
The Sinhalese must have their heads examined – too late now already India open embassy in Saiva TE (NP).
You won war from us but lost country to India. now You know why We-Tamils kicked out IPKF even though they have offered NEP in gold plate !!! but you Hela-sinhales paid back to us at Nanthi Kaddal – Thanks a lot !