The ruling party and the Opposition have both used State resources and State powers to get an advantageous situation during the forthcoming elections, a leading election monitoring body, People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) said today.

PAFFREL’s Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi told a news briefing yesterday that there had been 131 complaints on using State power and resources to the elections out of which 88 were confirmed.

"There has been 392 complains of election law violations and other incidents against the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) and 376 against United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), 34 against the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and 29 complaints over other parties,” he said.

However, Mr. Hettiarachchi said the political culture seemed to have change for the better, when considering the situation this time.

He made this by comparing the incidents pertaining to assaults during the general elections of 2010 and 2015. Accordingly there had been 71 cases of assaults in 2010, while there had been 35 this year, according to him.

“The political culture had improved but it has to be sustainable,” Hettiarachchi said.

Another interesting disclosure made by Mr. Hettiarachchi was that most of the complaints had been received from general public unlike during the previous elections, where complaints were lodged by members of political parties.

PAFFREL will deploy 13, 754 monitors on the Election Day, while there will be 25 mobile monitoring units with two monitors and 25 mobile units with four monitors in identified areas. (Yohan Perera and Darshana Sanjeewa)