Executive Director of PAFFREL Rohana Hettiarachchi said yesterday that a three-hour observation carried out by the outfit on Friday revealed the existence of illegal cut outs, banners and posters in 1600 places in the 22 districts of the country.

He said that they had submitted their report to the Commissioner of Elections and the majority of the violations of the Parliamentary Elections Act were the display of illegal posters, banners and cutouts in Badulla, Gampaha, Galle, Colombo and Kandy.

He said they had invited 50 foreign observers from Asian Network for Free and Fair Elections based in the Thai capital of Bangkok.

Hettiarachchi said 8000 monitors and 340 mobile teams will be deployed countrywide.

PAFFREL, in the course of a meeting with the Commissioner of Elections, requested permission for monitors to make their observations inside Counting Centres during the forthcoming Parliamentary elections, he said.

National Coordinator for the CMEV D. M. Dissanayake said that they had written to the Commissioner of Elections requesting permission for their monitors to make their observations during counting.

The Commissioner of Elections Dayananda Dissanayake is to invite party secretaries for a crucial meeting at the Elections Secretariat at Rajagiriya on March 12th to discuss many outstanding issues in connection with holding free and fair elections.

He said that it must be appreciated that lowest number of violations were recorded in Polonnaruwa, Nuwara-Eliya, Trincomalee and Jaffna.

He said that the cutouts of the two major parties had been classified into three categories - small, medium and large. The UPFA had 630 small cutouts of under six feet, 375 medium between seven and 12 feet and 231 large ones more than twelve feet. The United National Front had 60 small, 28 medium and 17 large category cutout.

Other political parties had 57 violations in all.