Sri Lanka issues health guidelines for parliamentary elections

Sri Lankan government issued a gazette notification on health guidelines to be followed for the upcoming parliamentary elections in wake of COVID crisis. The gazette contains guidelines that should be adhered by the political parties, their supporters, election candidates and voters during the election period. Accordingly, a candidate needs to give prior intimation of an election meeting to medical officer of the area and the meeting should not exceed more than five hundred people. 
Any person associated with election campaign or conduct of elections needs to wear masks, practice social distancing of one metre amidst adequate arrangements for sanitizers. The notification is in line with health guidelines issued by Health Ministry earlier. The election commission has insisted for it to be gazetted so that it is legally enforced. The commission had noted that the guidelines were not being adhered to during the ongoing campaign and that it will be difficult to conduct the elections without it. 

Earliar, Sri Lankan top poll body(Election Commission) had said it would be “extremely difficult” to conduct the polls as political leaders were defying safety measures to contain the spread of the Covid. Polling will be held on August 5, this year. 

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka  has seen over five hundred cases over the past week. Several hundred have been put under self quarantine to avoid any spread and people have been advised to take safety precautions. The country has had a total of 2697 infections so far while 674 are under active treatment. A total of 2013 people have recovered while 11 people have died.