Today is the “D” Day where polling in many parts of the country will start.
Today is the “D” Day where polling in many parts of the country will start.
According to the PNG Electoral Commission schedule some electorates will commence polling today, July 4 and continue until July 15 while all Highlands provinces, NCD and Lae will have one day polling between July 4 to 15.
Chief Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai has come out confidently saying his teams throughout the country are ready to conduct polling as per their schedule. But on the same talkback program he announced a deferral of the NCD polling day to Wednesday, July 6 because of logistic issues.
We as a partner in our country’s development don’t want to sound pessimistic but all these assurances during the entire course of this electoral cycle from pre-election; 2019-2021 and election; April-August 2022 there’s been too many assurances while the actions are not adding up.
We want to remind the Chief Electoral Commissioner that the General Election is a matter of public importance and Papua New Guineans have a right to be assured that due diligence for this major event has been taken care of. Full stop.
If early preparations were not forthcoming in a timely manner, the likelihood of a failure is definitely bound to occur.
The 2017 National General Elections were described as one of the worst elections in the country by our international observers, one of them was the Melanesian Spear Head Group.
In their general observation the outcome of the 2017 general election was embraced by the citizens of PNG but with many challenges.
In all polling stations visited by the MSGOG teams, there was an atmosphere of dissatisfaction with many voters complaining about their names missing from the Common Electoral Roll.
The MSGOG also came across reports on manipulation of the electoral rolls and double voting by voters who claimed to have voted twice after erasing the indelible ink that was used to mark voters.
They also observed significant delays in the opening on polling days and the apparent confusion over certain election processes that resulted in a number of inconsistencies.
We hope the Electoral Commission is aware of this report and it is not repeated in this election.
We have on numerous occasions since the completion of the 2017 General Election raised the issue of Electoral Roll and now after almost five years the current Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai, has approved the 2017 electoral roll and renamed the exercise as voter verification enrolment program.
We applaud him for getting the PNG Electoral Commission website back online for voters to check their names and to also check the polling dates and sites.
We just hope once again that those voters who have taken time out to participate in this voter verification enrolment program are not disappointed this time around.
When they are denied this right, the democratic process is incomplete.
The job is not done if there are disappointed voters or people whose right to participate have been denied. This denial is at the root of the issue of mismanaged Electoral Roll.
You cannot have large numbers of people being denied their voting rights and say you conducted a good election.
The Electoral Commissioner was quoted recently as saying “From the Electoral Commission, all preparations have been done for polling, especially in terms of electoral roll, ballot papers, polling team kits, polling officials, Returning Officers (ROs) and Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) appointments, and election trainings.”
But despite his assurances, we still have misgivings because history has the uncanny habit of repeating itself.
People being flown in from other provinces to vote are at the back of ballot boxes going missing or extra ballot papers being found. These are at the root of the Electoral Roll problem so let’s not kid ourselves.
The Chief Electoral Commissioner and his officers must now strive to ensure that this election will be much better than the 2017 General Election.
And we hope that the slow update of the electoral roll, the squeezed election period, the funding dilemma and the appointment of election officials are not an indication that the 2022 election will be the worse election in PNG’s history.
Our front-page story today, on Porgera Valley, a once pristine and a peaceful region, in Enga Province turned in to an internationally recognised gold mining town and now has become “a killing field”.
Australian Prime Minister John Gorton landed at the old Rabaul airport in 1970.
Chaotic. Unprecedented. Voter Fraud. Missing names. Common Roll failure. Violence. Shootings. Killings. Arson. Burning of ballots.
Our front-page story today, on Porgera Valley, a once pristine and a peaceful region, in Enga Province turned in to an internationally recognised gold mining town and now has become “a killing field”.
Australian Prime Minister John Gorton landed at the old Rabaul airport in 1970.
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