The Health Ministry on June 3 handed over health guidelines in connection with holding the General Election to the Election Commission (EC), reports Daily News. The health guidelines include the recommendations for postal voting, which public servants should take part in the process of postal voting, how election meetings should be held and how house to house canvassing should be done. The health guidelines also contain how the General Election day activities should be done and how counting of votes should be done. With health guidelines in hand, the Election Commission can hold the General election quickly.
Earlier, Executive Director People's Action for Free and Fair Election (PAFFREL), Rohana Hettiarachchi on June 2 said one should take a middle path when it comes to holding of elections, reports Daily Mirror. He said “COVID-19 is a global pandemic and is an exceptional situation. Therefore politicians should not open law books and argue on law points at this moment. However there are issues which have to be resolved. Government cannot spend funds on their own without Parliament's approval. One could challenge state spending in courts." Similarly, former Governor and former Executive Director of Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFE) Keerthi Tennekoon also said there are issues to be resolved with regard to the polls despite the dismissal of petitions filed against the election date. "The gazette notification issued by the President March 2, 2020 became defunct yesterday. Neither President nor Election Commission has provisions to decide on when the new Parliament could be convened. Besides many who uses postal votes won't get the opportunity of voting as many have not registered yet. Another issue is using schools as polling stations and counting centres. Besides there's is an issue as to how the government is going to spend for the poll without Parliament" he said.