The General Election 2020 will be held on August 5 while adhering to the health guidelines and other safety precautions, National Election Commission (NEC) Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya said yesterday.
A Gazette Notification in this regard was also issued.
Announcing the eagerly awaited decision, Deshapriya said the revised date was unanimously agreed by the three Members of the Commission and the Gazette Extraordinary signed by all of them was sent to the Government Printer yesterday for publication.
A total of 16,263,885 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise at this year’s Parliamentary Election. This number is about 270,000 more than the number of registered voters at the last Presidential Poll held on November 16, 2019.
The NEC issued the Gazette of preferential vote numbers of the candidates and polling stations on Tuesday. A total of 7,452 candidates are contesting the Election, 3,652 from political parties and the rest from independent groups. Only 196 electorally successful candidates will get the opportunity to represent Parliament together with another 29 appointees from the National List.
The nominations were accepted from March 12-19, but the Election date scheduled for April 25 was postponed first to June 20 in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Commission Chairman earlier said that about 15,000 health officers would be additionally deployed to constantly monitor the polling stations on the day of the Election and the day before.
He added that the Election cost which was previously estimated at 7 billion could soar to about Rs 9 billion due to the additional measures required in the wake of COVID-19.
Five more mock polls will be conducted in the coming weekend to demonstrate and test the new safety precautions at polling stations.
from daily news