By Rathindra Kuruwita

The Elections Commissioner has offered six election monitoring bodies the opportunity to place observers at 300 counting centres for the coming Presidential Election.
Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya held a meeting with polls monitors yesterday.
There are 1,200 counting centres for the coming Presidential Election and the Commissioner has not outlined how the 300 counting centres will be determined.

However, election monitors are yet to decide whether to accept the offer, because of the lack of clarity in the process involved.
"We want access to all counting centres because there are a lot of rumours that there might be vote rigging at counting centres. So presence of election monitors would help restore the people's faith in the counting process," Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon, Executive Director of Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE).

The polls monitors have been requesting the Elections Commissioner to give them access to counting centres. However the Commissioner has not hitherto given permission to the monitoring bodies. In the NorthWestern Provincial Council election last year, there was a great controversy after cleaners found a large number of ballot papers at a counting centre in Puttalam.