Know party policies before deciding who to support or vote, says O’Neill
News that matter in Papua New Guinea
Know party policies
before deciding who to support or vote, says O’Neill
PORT MORESBY: Ialibu-Pangia MP Peter O’Neill says a government
consisting of multiple coalition partners can be challenging as it will focus
on managing different interests and not the country.
O’Neill, a former prime
minister, said constant instability had resulted in many smaller parties going
to Parliament.
He urged voters to familiarise
themselves with party policies before deciding who to support or vote.
PNG Cyber Monitor reproduces below a few news updates on the coming General Election 2022 as reported by The National:
Coalition govts
‘challenging’
May 6, 2022The NationalMain Stories
O’Neill said constant instability had resulted in many smaller parties going to
Parliament.
He urged voters to familiarise themselves with party policies before they
decided who to vote.
O’Neill, also the People’s National Congress (PNC) party leader, highlighted
the need to give confidence to the business community among several other party
priorities.
“Managing smaller parties isn’t easy for anybody (political party) who is in
Government,” he said.
“It has always been a constant challenge.
“Sometimes when we have a government which is made up of so many partners, we
have a situation where we are busy managing politics, trying to maintain
stability of a government and we forget the priority of managing the country on
behalf of the people.
“We (PNC) have experienced that and I’m sure present and previous governments
have faced these similar challenges.
“I encourage our voters to make clear a mandate so we can hold that particular
party accountable for its actions.
“Voters should get policies of parties, feel comfortable with what they are
putting forward that they can achieve and elect leaders on that.
“We have an economy that isn’t functioning well, we have to give confidence to
the business community.
“Many investments have been on hold.
“Projects like Papua LNG, P’nyang, Porgera, Wafi-Golpu have stalled.
“There has been zero foreign direct investment into the country over the last
three years.”
O’Neill suggested the need to focus and improve productivity in agriculture,
fisheries, forestry and tourism.
He also stressed on challenges faced by hospitals in the country.
Marat denies defection claim
By ROSELYN ELLISON
RABAUL MP Dr Allan
Marat has refuted rumours circulated on social media that he has left his
Melanesian Liberal Party (MLP) to join the People’s National Congress (PNC).
Marat told The National that because of his close relationship with the
Kandrian-Gloucester MP Joseph Lelang, he was invited on a trip to open a health
facility.
Marat said on that trip were members of the PNC party, including the leader,
Peter O’Neill, who had asked him and Lelang to consider PNC.
“I declined after discussions with my party executives taking into account the
interest of my voters who had put me in office,” he said.
“I want to make it clear to the public and my supporters, I still remain as the
parliamentary leader of MLP while Nelson Kiene is the non-parliamentary
leader.”
Marat also confirmed that, for this year’s general election MLP had endorsed a
large number of candidates.
He added that apart from himself in the Rabaul open seat, MLP had endorsed a
candidate for Gazelle and the regional seat while there were also 10 other
candidates endorsed to contest in other seats.
Morobe office expecting large number of
candidates
Pati members and
supporters during a recent party convention at the Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium
in Lae, Morobe.
By EHEYUC SESERU
MOROBE is expecting
the general election to be highly contested with the anticipation of more than
25 candidates in each of the 10 open seats and the regional seat.
Assistant provincial election manager Fredah Joses said the election would be
highly contested with a lot of intending candidates and their committees
frequenting the office to collect nomination forms for all the 10 open seats
and the governor’s seat.
“We are seeing a lot of interest. At the same time, we’ve been distributing
forms to our officers in districts and local level governments (LLGs),” she
said.
“We haven’t received any exact figures from districts and LLGs.
“But we are seeing a lot of people coming to our office. This is going to be a
highly contested election for all 11 seats in the province.
“We’re anticipating a large number of people contesting.
“We would be very surprised if we have below 25 to 30 candidates per seats.”
The 11 seats are provincial, Lae, Markham, Huon Gulf, Bulolo, Menyamya, Nawaeb,
Finschhafen, Kabwum, Tewai-Siassi and new Wau-Waria electorate.
“The forms were evenly divided for those who would be contesting under a
political party and those as independents,” Fredah said.
“We are encouraging intending candidates to pay their nomination fee of K1,000
in advance into the Electoral Commission’s trust account.
“We’re also distributing original deposit slips.”
Family, sexual violence units to remain open
during elections
By CRETILDA ALOKAKA
NATIONAL Capital
District Metropolitan Supt Gideon Ikumu says it will be business as usual for
all family and sexual violence units (FSVU) in city during the elections.
Ikumu told The National yesterday that FSVUs would operate on
normal working hours, but would only attend to major cases due to manpower.
“Most of the staff will be deployed at the polling booths,” he said.
“The more the polling booths, the more officers we will need to mend the
polling booths.
“If there are cases that need immediate attention then officers will be called
in.
“The Sexual Offenses Squad and Criminal Investigation Division officers are
always on-call, as well.
“Only for extreme cases, such as sorcery-related killings or cases that need
immediate attention, then officers will attend immediately.
“But all the staff will be present at their work stations after the polling day
to carry out business as usual.”
Ikumu said that the FSVU provided safe houses to victims of gender-based
violence, sorcery accusation related violence, and others and carried out
investigations to hold perpetrators accountable.
“The FSVU should be operating on a 24-hour basis if we had enough manpower in
the units, but because of the lack of staff attached with the unit, the
operational hours is from 8am to 4pm weekly,” he said.
“But most times, these officers work until late in the night and stand down by
midnight.”
Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai has announced one-day polling for Port
Moresby, Morobe and the Highlands.
Pokawin explains NA
tradition
May 6, 2022The NationalMain Stories
He explained that as part of the party’s tradition, its eight sitting MPs were
‘automatically endorsed’ for the election.
NA’s East Sepik branch chairman Betha Somare raised a concern on endorsed
candidates recommended by two sitting NA MPs from the province.
“We as a provincial executive did not hand pick these candidates but followed
the process set out in our National Alliance constitution,” she said.
“The National Alliance party cannot talk about the corruption of processes and
deterioration in our systems of governance if you do not follow your own
constitutional processes.” Pokawin said the ultimate interest of the party was to
get the best outcome in the general election and form the next government.
“We (NA) are focused despite challenges we faced internally with a view to form
the next government,” he said.
“And that is also the focus in selection of candidates for 2022. We allow the
MPs to select candidates.
“In our custom, all MPs are automatically endorsed for the next election. All
MPs including Governor Allan Bird and MP Salio Waipo, they are automatic
endorsements and no one will prevent it from happening. All eight MPs are
endorsed according to the party tradition.
“If we had gone a little bit out of the (party) constitution that is something
to manage.
“We have challenges but we try to manage (them) internally.
“We are not going to permit any disruption in 2022.”
Pokawin warned anyone in NA’s branches or foundation members who tried to
disrupt the party’s effort to go into the general election would not be acting
in the party’s interests. Pokawin was party general secretary from 2002 until
the 2017 general election after which he became party president.
Proposal to ban alcohol
Election education …
Menyamya Secondary School students dramatising the importance of the election
process and its impact on rural service delivery. – Nationalpic by Gloria Bauai
POLICE Minister
William Onglo has proposed to all 22 provincial governors to impose a
nationwide ban on alcohol throughout the general election.
He made the proposal through a letter dated May 5 to the governors.
Onglo clarified that there was no nationwide liquor ban yet and that his office
was just making a proposal.
“As we all a very well aware from past experiences, alcohol has always been a
main factor contributing towards inciting and triggering electoral violence.
“And now with cheap alcohol made available and accessible everywhere, it will
be a huge problem. That is why I wrote to the provincial governors proposing a
nationwide alcohol ban,” he added.
Onglo said he also requested for the governors to work with their provincial
administrations and provincial election steering committees to discuss and
impose the ban in the best way possible way.
“Our Government is focused and determined for a successful election.”
Sell liquor to licensed traders: Police
POLICE in Western
Highlands have urged liquor distributors to sell alcohol to licensed holders
only.
Provincial police commander Chief Supt Joe Puri said this was part of efforts
to control consumption.
He said alcohol sales were widespread and authorities needed to maintain some
restrictions.
Puri noted that alcohol abuse among youths in the province was a concern.
“Alcohol related issues are a major concern and those who by law are allowed to
distribute alcohol must know what they are doing,” he said.
“You cannot just give them away when someone turns up at the counter with
cash,” Puri said.
He said an agenda for a meeting next week would be to ban the sale of liquor in
the province during the election period.
Puri said only hotels and lodges would be allowed to sell alcohol.
With the issue of writs next Thursday, Puri said police would be out to control
traffic and the movement of the people in and out of the province.
“Mt Hagen is one of the over populated centres with people coming from all
over, this is why law and order has been a major concern and police through the
recently launched ‘Eagles Eye’ operation will do their best to keep law and order.”
No mobile phones in counting rooms, Sinai says
By MICHAEL PHILIP
ELECTION officials,
scrutineers, journalists and those who are expected to be in the counting room
will not be allowed to have their mobile phones during the counting process, an
official says.
Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai said this would prevent leaks of information
on count tallies before they were vetted and confirmed.
“This is to avoid giving out misleading information,” he said.
“From past elections, this was overlooked and everyone in the counting room had
mobile phones.
“As a result we saw ordinary people posting counting updates on social media.
“Some even announced false winning candidates and then when final results come
out another candidate was announced as the winner.
“This created conflicts between rival candidates and their supporters so this
year’s election will be different as we will not allow anyone to have in hand
mobile phones in the counting room.”
Sinai said journalists would be given special dispensation if they could
demonstrate the need to have mobile phones in the counting areas.
Following the idea of delivering a free, fair and safer election this year,
Sinai said they would install closed-circuit television (CCTV) to monitor
counting at all allocated centres. “We want to run the election with a
different approach that practices honesty and integrity,” he said.
“We want transparency in this year’s election.
“These small changes are to protect the election process.
“For our journalists, we understand they are there to do a job of disseminating
information but they have to earn our trust for them to have in hand their
mobile phones in the counting room.”
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