{"id":104882,"date":"2013-09-12T00:05:43","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T18:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=104882"},"modified":"2013-09-16T16:35:56","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T11:05:56","slug":"govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt Ran Ads To Influence Postal Voting: Polls Monitors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">Independent election monitors have written to Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya slamming the Public Administration Ministry for running a full page advertisement entitled Abhiman Mehewara or &#8216;Proud Service&#8217; aimed at public servants on September 9 saying it aimed to influence public servants during two days of postal voting.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_104883\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/abeykoon\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-104883\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104883\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-104883\" title=\"Abeykoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Abeykoon-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Abeykoon-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Abeykoon.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-104883\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">P.B. Abeykoon, the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In a letter to the Commissioner, the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) said the advertisement had featured themes, colours and symbols of the ruling party and was a clear attempt to promote the UPFA.<\/p>\n<p>The advertisement was estimated to cost about Rs. 200,000 and was published in the Lankadeepa newspaper, CaFFE said. Published by the Public Administration Ministry with a picture of the Ministry Secretary, the advertisement was paid for by the Ministry using the peoples&#8217; tax money, CaFFE told the Elections Commissioner in a letter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The advertisement published on the day postal voting commenced targets public servants and was an attempt to influence public servants,&#8221; the polls monitors charged in a media release.<\/p>\n<p>The polls monitors have called on the Elections Commissioner to consider charging the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration personally for this advertisement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":104883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2187,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-most-popular","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Govt Ran Ads To Influence Postal Voting: Polls Monitors - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Govt Ran Ads To Influence Postal Voting: Polls Monitors - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-11T18:35:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-09-16T11:05:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Abeykoon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/\",\"name\":\"Govt Ran Ads To Influence Postal Voting: Polls Monitors - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Abeykoon.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-11T18:35:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-09-16T11:05:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/govt-ran-ads-to-influence-postal-voting-polls-monitors\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Abeykoon.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Abeykoon.jpg\",\"width\":\"480\",\"height\":\"360\",\"caption\":\"P.B. 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